'BS480 
.U>7fc 


T  H  E 

DIVINE   HUMAN 


THE  SCKIPTTJBES. 


TATLEE    LEWIS, 


UNION    COLLEGE. 


6  Aoyog  rov  Qeov  £wv  mi  kvefjyi/g.     .     .     .     Heb.  iv  :  12. 
6  Aoyoc  cap!;  kyevero.     .     .     .     John  i :  14. 


NEW  YORK : 

ROBERT  CARTER  AND  BROTHERS, 

No.    53  0    BROADWAY. 

1860. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S59,  by 

ROBERT  CARTER  &  BROTHERS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the 

Southern  District  of  New  York. 


EDWARD   0.   JENKINS, 

^rtntrr  &  ^tfrfotrtprr, 
No.  26  Frankfort  Stbkkt. 


PREFACE 


A  true  faith  in  the  Scriptures  must  have  its  strength  in  the 
Scriptures  themselves.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  proposition 
of  the  clearest  reason.  If  the  Bible  be  the  word  of  God  with 
a  human  voice,  then  must  it  speak  to  the  human  soul  directly 
as  no  other  word,  no  other  voice,  can  speak.  Too  much  have 
we  relied  on  outward  helps.  Not  casting  away,  then,  but 
leaving  behind  our  Apologies  for  the  Bible,  our  Philosophies 
of  the  Bible,  our  Reconciliations  of  the  Bible  with  Science,  we 
should  come  directly  to  the  Scriptures,  with  the  rational  as 
well  as  reverent  belief,  that  if  they  are  divine  they  must  con- 
tain within  themselves  their  own  strong  self-evidencing  power. 
We  would  say  to  the  young  man  disturbed  with  scepticism, 
Read  your  Bible.  We  would  say  to  all  who  have  difficulties 
which  they  honestly  wish  removed,  Study  the  Scriptures,  med- 
itate therein  by  day  and  by  night — 

Nocturna  versate  manu,  versale  diurna. 

It  is  the  only  true  and  lasting  cure  of  scepticism,  whether  for 
an  individual  or  an  age.  It  might  be  thought  that  there  is 
some  risk  in  the  prescription,  and  doubtless  it  may  be  so  with 
its  first  effects  ;  for  the  difficulties  and  stumbling-blocks  may 
show  themselves  before  the  deep  verities  have  begun  to  arrest 
and  amaze  the  soul :  but  let  there  be  perseverance,  and  the  di- 
vine medicine  will  reveal  its  power ;  "  the  sun  of  righteousness 
will  at  length  arise  with  healing  in  its  wings." 

At  no  time,  we  believe,  are  such  thoughts  more  important 


IV  PREFACE. 

than  at  present.  Faith  is  weakened  by  habitual  reliance  upon 
outward  props,  even  when  sound.  The  age,  aud  all  serious 
minds  of  the  age,  are  called  to  the  inward  study  of  the  word 
itself.  In  the  signs  of  the  times  we  seem  to  hear  the  voice  that 
came  to  Augustine  in  his  memorable  conversion-struggle  in  the 
garden,  "  Take  up  the  book  and  read — take  up  the  book  and 
read."  It  seems  to  say  to  us  with  a  new  emphasis,  ~E,pevvare 
rag  ypacpdg,  "  Search  the  Scriptures,"  explore  the  Scriptures, 
there  are  hidden  treasures  there,  there  are  living  waters  there  ; 
study  the  Scriptures,  they  contain  more  than  knowledge,  the 
words  they  speak  unto  you,  "  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life." 

The  above  thoughts  are  not  made  directly  the  subject  of  the 
following  book,  but  they  suggestively  pervade  it,  and  may, 
therefore,  justly  occupy  its  prefatory  page. 

The  writer  would  merely  add,  that  the  present  volume  has 
grown  out  of  what  was  intended  as  an  introduction  to  another 
work  on  the  Figurative  Language  of  the  Scriptures,  and  which, 
with  the  divine  permission,  he  hopes  soon  to  give  to  the  public. 
Some  of  the  thoughts  in  such  intended  introduction  were 
deemed  worthy  of  being  treated  at  greater  length,  and  with 
more  liberty.  Hence  the  expansion  which  has  resulted  in  the 
book  here  offered  to  the  Church.  It  is  hoped  that  it  will  be 
found  to  occupy  that  ground  of  our  common  Christianity  which 
carries  us  above  all  narrow  sectarianism.  Whatever  may  be 
its  defects,  in  other  respects,  it  is  believed  to  be  evangelical, 
churchly,  catholic  in  that  true  sense  of  Catholicism  which  is 
acknowledged  by  all  true  believers. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 
The  Word, 2 

CHAPTER   II. 

The  Language  of  the  Bible  Divinely  Chosen 13 

CHAPTER  III. 

Verbal  Inspiration 27 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Denial  of  the  Supernatural 45 

CHAPTER   V. 

The  objection  must  go  farther  —  No  Divine  Knowledge 
of  the  Finite 59 

CHAPTER  VI. 

If  Revelation  is  Human,  it  must  be  Most  Human 84 


VI  CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

is  the  Bible  Language  Obsolete  ? 93 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

The  Enduring  "Word  119 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Universality  of  the  Scriptures 138 

CHAPTER   X. 

The  Bible  Supernatural 150 

CHAPTER   XI. 

The  Natural  of  the  Scriptures  —  A  Proof  of  the  Super- 
natural     ISO 

CHAPTER   XII. 

The  Internal  Truthfulness  of  the  Scriptures 198 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Argument  Continued  —  Statistical  Character  of  the 
Scriptuees 22  L 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Argument  Continued  —  Proper  Names 239 


CONTENTS.  Vil 

CHAPTER   XV. 

Argument  from  the  Natural  continued  —  the  boldest  of 
forgeries,  or  wholly  true 255 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Natural  in  the  History  of  Christ 273 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

The  Mysterious  Chasm  in  Church  History 296 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  Apostle  Paul 328 

CHAPTER   XIX. 

Application  of  the  Argument— The  Bible  a  'World-Book   348 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Power  of  the  Bible 364 

Notes 385 


ERRATA. 


Page  194,  line  8,  for  Gibreh  read  Gibeah. 
"      175,   "     l,for    yyv|      «      "p-n 
«      238,   "   21,  for    ^M        "      fititt 


THE 

DIVIDE    HUMAN 

IN  THE  SCRIPTURES. 


CHAPTER    I. 

The  Word — How  used  in  Scripture — "Written — Incarnate — The 
Perfect  Analogy — The  Word  of  Truth — The  Word  of  Life — 
The  Term,  "Son  of  Man"— The  Pure  Humanity  of  Christ— No 
Man  ever  so  Human— The  Humanity  of  the  Written  Word — 
Analogy  in  the  Conception  and  Formation  of  each— The  Divine 
in  the  Human— All  Revelation  Anthropopathic,  whether  in  the 
Flesh  or  in  Language. 

The  written  Word — the  incarnate  Word. 

It  is  no  mere  fanciful  or  verbal  analogy  that 

connects  these  two  ideas.      This  is  shown  by 

the  fact  that  there  are  passages  of  Scripture 

where  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  between 

them,    or   to    determine  with  certainty  that 

one  of  them  is  the  exclusive  sense,  or  that 

both  are  not  comprehended  in  one  essential 
2 


THE    DIVINE    HUM  A  N 


and  inseparable  significance.  There  is  the 
sloyog  'AXrjQeiag,  and  the  Adyog  Zwijc,  the 
Word  of  Truth,  and  the  Word  of  Life.  "  Of 
his  will  he  begat  us  through  the  word  of 
truth."  Is  it  the  written  word  here,  that  is, 
the  truth  conveyed  in  it  as  presented  to  the 
mind,  or  is  it  "  the  Word  that  became  flesh," 
Christ  in  the  soul,  not  as  truth  merely,  but 
as  a  living  power?  the  Word  of  Truth,  the 
true  Word — by  a  well-known  Hebraism  so 
common  in  the  New  Testament — the  true 
Word  in  the  sense  of  the  real  Word,  the 
living  Word,  the  tftiyvToq  loyoq,  or  in-grow- 
ing Word.  So.  also,  "  Sanctify  them  through 
thy  truth,  thy  Word  is  truth."  It  is  the 
rationalist's  favorite  text.  In  interpreting  it 
he  thinks  only  of  truth,  as  the  food  of  the 
intellect,  and  that,  too,  not  always  as  Bible 
truth,  but  truth  in  general,  reason,  doctrine, 
knowledge,  as  the  regenerating,  soul-nurtur- 
ing, sanctifying  power.  So  is  it  most  com- 
monly taken,  even  by  the  soberest  theolo- 
gians ;  but  it  is  far  from  being  certain  that 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  6 

this  is  the  right  interpretation,  or,  at  least, 
the  only  true  interpretation  of  the  language. 
It  was  not  the  favorite  interpretation  of  the 
early  Church  ;  it  has  not  been  the  interpre- 
tation, at  least  the  exclusive  interpretation, 
of  the  most  spiritually-minded  in  later  times. 
'*  Sanctify  them,"  consecrate  them,  set  them 
apart,  in  thij  truth,  iv  %r\  alrj&da  oov. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  iv  is  instru- 
mental here,  as  commonly  taken,  or  does  not 
have  a  deeper  significance,  as  in  that  inex- 
haustible language,  tv  nvtviiaii,  iv  Xqlotw. 
11  Sanctify  them  in  thy  truth/'  says  the  Re- 
deemer, and  then,  as  though  to  guard  against 
human  misapprehension  of  this  intercessory 
pleading,  the  sentence  is  added,  "Thy 
Word,"  6  Aoyoo,  6  rrog,  the  Word  that  is 
thine,  the  Word  that  pre-eminently  repre- 
sents the  Infinite  Father,  the  "  Image  of  the 
Invisible  God,"  the  Incarnate  Word,  that  "  is 
the  truth,'7  the  sanctifying  truth,  or  the  true 
sanctifying  Word,  by  union  to  which  men 
become  holy,  separate  from  the  world,  united 


T  II  E    I)  I  V  1 N  E    H  UMAX 


to  God,  and  "partakers  of  the  Divine  nature." 
It  is  the  Word  of  Truth,  or  the  true  Word, 
not  as  a  dogma,  a  thought,  an  intellectual 
verity,  though  in  relation  to  the  highest  and 
most  religious  things,  but  an  indwelling,  en- 
ergizing presence, — truth  alive  in  the  soul, 
entering  into  and  constitutive  of  its  ver}r 
being.  The  other — the  rationalistic  or  dog- 
matic view — has  also  its  evidence.  The 
affirmation  of  the  one  aspect  is  not  the  de- 
nial of  the  other.  Both  may  be  united  ; 
both  may  be  regarded  as  inseparable  parts 
of  one  idea,  or  the  manifestation  of  the  infi- 
nite in  the  finite  ;  for  the  highest  truth  we 
have  is  anthropopathic  ;  it  is  a  representa- 
tion to  the  sense,  and  in  sense-conceptions, 
of  the  ineffable  and  the  eternal  that  can  be 
received  in  no  other  way.  Thus  it  is  that 
the  Word  of  Truth  and  the  Word  of  Life  may 
be  regarded  as  essentially  connected  ;  but 
certainly,  if  we  attempt  to  separate  them 
logically  in  our  minds,  as  we  may  do,  care 
should  be   taken  not   to  convert  the   living 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  5 

aspect  into  the  figure,  and  make  the  naked, 
abstract  truth  the  higher  and  more  power- 
ful reality. 

The  Written,  the  Incarnate  Word.  It  may 
be  called  analogy,  but  the  analogy,  the  pro- 
portion, is  perfect.  As  the  divine  to  the 
human  nature  in  Christ,  so  is  the  divine 
thought,  the  divine  life  in  the  Scriptures, 
to  their  human  form.  It  is  perfect  in  kind, 
perfect  in  degree  ;  it  is  analogous,  ava  Xoyov, 
throughout.  In  both  we  have  the  infinite 
in  the  finite,  the  divine  in  the  human,  the 
ineffable  in  the  forms  of  sense,  the  essential 
as  exhibited  in  the  phenomenal, — the  absolute, 
the  eternal,  the  unconditioned  as  represented 
in  the  relative,  the  temporal,  the  flowing 
images  of  time  and  space.  So  in  degree  ; 
the  thought  is  carried  to  its  ultimate  in 
each.  Christ  is  not  only  human,  but  most  in- 
tensely human.  Never  was  there  a  man  so 
purely  man  as  this  "second  man,  the  Lord 
from  heaven."  Never  man  spake  so  humanly, 
felt  so  humanly,  loved  so  humanly,  lived  so 


b  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

humanly,  died  so  humanly.  Bone  of  our 
bone,  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  he  had  a  purer 
humanity  than  any  of  the  other  sons  of 
Adam,  inasmuch  as  it  was  free  from  that 
demoniac  adulteration  which  had  been  pro- 
duced by  sin.  Hence  is  he  so  emphatically 
called,  and  so  delights  to  call  himself,  the 
Son  of  Man.  The  term  has  more  meaning 
than  it  seems  at  first  view  to  possess.  In 
the  Syriac,  the  Saviour's  native  dialect,  it  is 
the  name  for  humanity  itself.  Bar  nosho, 
the  Son  of  Man,  is  man  generically  ;  the  filial 
part  of  the  compound  denoting  the  identity, 
and  continuance,  and  purity  of  the  generic 
idea.  Hence  is  he  appointed  to  judge  human- 
ity (John  v.,  27),  "  because  he  is  the  Son  of 
Man."  It  is  only  from  Christ's  most  perfect 
manhood  that  we  rise  to  the  best  thought  of 
his  divinity.  He  could  not  have  been  so 
perfect  a  man,  so  complete  in  his  finiteness, 
had  he  not  been  also  divine  and  infinite. 
The  mystery  no  mind  can  solve  ;  the  fact  is 
not  only  most  glorious  for  our  apprehension, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  7 

but  the  ground  of  all  our  hope.  This  is  more 
fully  dwelt  upon  in  a  subsequent  chapter  ; 
it  is  here  stated  as  an  introductory  or  ground 
idea.  And  so  of  the  written  Word.  The 
analogy  is  without  a  flaw.  No  book  is  so 
purely  human  as  the  Bible  ;  there  is  no  one 
in  which  the  actors  are  so  purely  men.  Its 
language,  idioms,  figures,  are  all  addressed  to 
our  most  intense,  and  therefore  most  univer- 
sal humanity.  This  is  proof  of  its  divinity. 
Nothing  but  an  inspiration  in  the  human, 
breathing  through  it,  penetrating  and  sound- 
ing every  part  of  it,  could  have  so  brought 
out  the  human.  Its  language,  therefore, 
whilst  most  intensely  ours,  is,  of  all  language, 
the  most  divine.  The  philosophic  or  scien- 
tific styles  of  speech  would  have  betrayed 
their  purely  earthly  origin,  by  their  partial, 
their  one-sided,  and  therefore  false  anthro- 
popathism  ;  for  it  would  have  been  anthro- 
popathism  still,  though  not  the  divine  an- 
thropopathism  of  the  Scriptures.  The  very 
attempt  to  get  above  humanity  would  have 


8  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

produced  a  distorted  and  inhuman  repre- 
sentation. The  Scriptures,  like  Christ,  come 
down  to  us — come  down  to  us  perfectly; 
they  occupy  the  common  plane  of  our  nature. 
Hence  their  language,  if  inspired  at  all,  is 
inspired  throughout.  The  very  words  and 
figures  are  full  of  the  divine  breath,  and  are 
therefore  to  be  searched  for  the  divine 
thought,  the  divine  emotion,  that  fills  out 
this  perfect  humanity. 

Thus,  too,  is  the  analogy  perfect  in  respect 
to  the  conception  and  generation  of  both 
Words,  or  both  these  expressions  of  the 
divine  in  human  form.  Christ's  humanity 
was  conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  born 
of  the  Virgin  Mary.  It  was  thus  a  true 
humanity,  linked  in  its  life-source  with  our 
humanity,  and  growing  out  of  it.  We  can 
conceive  of  an  artificial  or  mechanically- 
formed  Christ, — if  we  may  use  the  strange 
expression, — such  as  was  fancied  by  some  of 
the  old  heretics  who  denied  the  miraculous 
conception.     We  can   think  of  a  new  being, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES. 


made  outwardly  and  inwardly  like  the  human 
race — so  like  that  sense  and  thinking  could 
discover  no  difference — something  like  Agas- 
siz's  fancy  in  respect  to  separate  Adams  or 
centres  of  creation.  But  such  a  humanity, 
if  we  may  call  it  so,  would  not  have  been 
our  humanity.  Such  a  being  would  not 
have  been  our  brother,  any  more  than  an 
inhabitant  of  the  remotest  visible  star.  There 
would  be  no  common  point  in  time  and  space 
in  which  his  life  could  be  numerically  one 
with  ours,  or  ours  one  with  his.  There  could 
have  been  no  abiding  generic  unity.  Such 
a  human,  we  say,  would  not  be  our  human. 
And  so,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we  conceive 
of  an  artificial  written  word,  or  a  mechanical 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  It  might  have 
been  written  on  the  sky,  or,  what  would 
have  been  very  much  the  same  thing,  by 
men  employed,  not  as  thinking,  feeling,  con- 
ceiving, in  all  their  freedom  as  men,  but  as 
outwardly  moved,  as  amanuenses  or  involun- 
tary utterers.  But  this  would  not  have  been 
2* 


10  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

our  Scriptures,  our  revelation,  our  most  hu- 
man as  well  as  most  divine  book.     It  would 
not  have  been  an   inspiration  in  the  human, 
and  through  the  human.     Its  thought   must 
link  itself  with  our  thought,  its  emotion  with 
our  emotion,  as  light  from  light,  and  life  from 
life.     Through  the  divine  "  o'ershadowing " 
power  it  is  conceived  in  human  feeling,  nur- 
tured in  human  thinking,  fashioned  in  human 
imagery,  and   brought  out  at  last  in  human 
language.     Thus,  as  ultimate   products,   and 
through  this  linked  series  of  generation,  the 
very    words    are    inspired,    not   merely    the 
thoughts  or  emotions,  as  though  these  could 
be  separated  from  the  words.     For  how  can 
there  be  feelings  that  do  not  fashion  to  them- 
selves images,  and  how  can  there  be  images 
in  the  mind  that  do  not  arrange  themselves  in 
thoughts,  and  how  can  there  be  thoughts  that 
do  not  take  the  form  of  words  !    The  process  is 
inseparable.  The  first  inspiration,  or  inbreath- 
ing, has  in  it,  not  only  virtually,  but  in  design, 
all  the  rest.    Thus  the  very  words  of  Scripture 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  11 

are  inspired.  This  is  the  great  truth,  the  liv- 
ing truth,  that  forms  the  only  basis  of  any 
hopeful  interpretation.  The  language  is  what 
God  meant  it  to  be.  It  is  his  chosen  method, 
his  best  method,  for  revealing  himself  to 
human  minds.  As  the  Infinite  must  be  un- 
known, unthought,  or  clothe  himself  in  the 
forms  of  the  finite,  so  this  is  the  form  he 
has  selected  as  the  most  human,  the  most 
perfect  in  its  finiteness.  He  has  taken  this 
rather  than  the  style  of  science  and  philoso- 
phy, even  as  Christ  came  in  the  purest  and 
most  universal  humanity  instead  of  that 
false  anthropomorphism  that  might  have 
been  preferred  by  the  more  ambitious  forms 
of  human  thought.  Our  philosophy  may  not 
like  the  word  ;  there  is  none,  perhaps,  to 
which  the  common  irreligious  thinking  affects 
to  be  more  opposed  ;  but  we  cannot  escape 
from  the  thing  itself ;  and  why  should  we  wish 
to  escape  from  it  ?  All  religion,  all  revela- 
tion, is  a  divine  anthropopathism.     No  other 


12  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

is  conceivable.  The  Written  Word,  the  In- 
carnate Word,  however  we  may  regard  them 
as  differing  in  rank,  are  analogous  manifesta- 
tions of  the  same  condescension  in  the  Infinite 
and  Ineffable  Personality. 


CHAPTER     II. 


The  Language  of  the  Bible  Divinely  Chosen  —  Principle  of 
Interpretation  —  "  No  Iota  of  the  Law  shall  fail  "  —  Patristic  In- 
terpretation—  The  Great  Bible  Thoughts,  then  new— The 
Fathers  found  them  everywhere  —  The  Modern  Yiew  of  the 
Scriptures  as  a  Fragmentary  Book  —  Traditional  Interpretation 
—  Christ  in  the  Scriptures  —  The  Hero-Messiah  —  Hieronymus 
and  Matthew  Henry  —  De  Wette  and  Davidson  —  The  Profes- 
sional Scholiast  and  the  true  Homeric  Interpreter  —  The  Unity  of 
the  Scriptures  —  Modern  Interpretation  finds  too  little  in  them. 


The  previous  thoughts  furnish  the  ground 
of  a  most  important  hermeneutical  position. 
The  canon  and  its  preamble  may  be  thus 
stated — The  language  of  the  Bible  is  divinely 
chosen — its  words  and  figures  are  designed  to  be 
just  what  they  are  ;  ' '  eloquia  Domini,  eloquia 
casta,  argentum  igne  examination,  probatum 
terra,  purgatum  septuplum  ;  the  words  of  the 
Lord  are  pure  words,  like  silver  tried,  seven 
times  refined"      We  may  therefore  search  them, 


14  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

and  rationally  search  them,  for  a  divine  signifi- 
cance. ]NTot  one  jot  or  tittle  of  it  shall  fail  to 
reward  our  study.  Christ  has  given  us  assur- 
ance of  this  ;  the  Light  of  the  World  hath 
told  us  that  the  Scriptures  are  every  where 
full  of  Him  and  His  salvation.  He  himself 
found  rich  meanings  lying  under  words  and 
forms  of  speech  in  which  the  Sadducean  ra- 
tionalists of  his  day  saw  nothing.  We  may, 
therefore,  expect  to  discover  in  them  "  treas- 
ures new  and  old.7'  We  shall  see  "  wondrous 
things  out  of  the  divine  law,"  and  these  will 
be,  not  merely  conceits  of  our  own  minds, 
but  thoughts  substantial,  living  ideas,  having 
in  themselves  evidence  that  they  are  true 
fruits,  not  of  any  mere  human  thinking,  but 
of  the  tuxpwoq  IdyoQ,  the  "  iiigr 'owing  word," 
the  life-giving  word  that  saves,  that  is,  heals, 
makes  sound,  our  souls, — the  icord  that  co- 
essentiates  itself  with  our  spiritual  life,  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  knowledge  that  lies  only  in 
the  sense  and  memory,  or,  at  the  utmost, 
only  lodges  in  the  chambers  of  the  specula- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  15 

tive  intellect,   instead  of   entering  into  the 
very  growth  of  the  spiritual  constitution. 

Interpretations  grounded  on  such  an  idea 
may,  indeed,  be  visionary.  Although  there 
is  a  divine  warrant  for  thus  studying  the 
Scriptures,  there  is  none  for  the  individual 
human  infallibility.  Even  as  fancies,  how- 
ever, if  they  be  but  the  fancies  of  a  sanctified 
imagination,  they  may  still  have  about  them 
the  holy  fragrance  of  a  true  original  inspired 
conception,  and  thus,  in  fact,  be  nearer  the 
inner  truthfulness,  than  many  a  more  scien- 
tific exegesis  to  which,  critically,  no  objection 
could  be  taken.  This  latter  remark  holds 
true  of  many  an  interpretation  of  the  earlier 
Fathers  that  is  held  in  contempt  by  the 
modern  scholiast.  The  Cross,  the  Regenera- 
tion, the  Church,  the  Few  Life,  the  Spiritual 
Temple,  the  New  Humanity,  the  New  Jeru- 
salem or  City  of  God, — these  glorious  ideas 
then  so  fresh  and  wonderful,  together  with 
their  sacramental  signs,  they  found  in  many 
a  text  where  the  modern  exegesis  finds  them 


16  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

not,  and  where  we  are  compelled  to  say,  the 
modern  exegesis  is  correct,  dry,  hard,  and 
sometimes,  even  worthless,  as  it  may  seem  to 
be.  Thus  Hieronymus,  in  his  Commentaries, 
often  finds  in  the  Scriptures  what  is  not  there 
logically,  or  even  metaphorically, — at  least  in 
the  particular  passage  to  which  he  assigns  it. 
Yet  even  in  such  cases,  the  interpretation  is 
but  the  vivid  outgrowth  of  true  Biblical 
ideas  ;  that  is,  of  ideas  that  men  would  never 
have  had  without  the  Bible.  They  are  living 
seeds  sown  in  the  souls  of  holy  men  from  the 
"ingrowing  word,"  and  they  come  out  every 
where,  often  irregularly  and  in  wild  luxuriance. 
The  very  extravagance  of  their  germination 
shows,  not  only  the  fertility  of  the  new  soil, 
but  the  rich  life  that  was  in  the  original  sem- 
inal power.  Is  it  irrational  to  think  that 
more  of  this  true  power  of  the  word  may  be 
learned  from  minds  in  such  a  state  than  from 
the  colder  hermeneutics,  even  though  the 
latter  may  give  us  the  more  correct  interpre- 
tation of  particular  passages  ? 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  17 

These  great  Bible  thoughts,  as  we  have 
said,  were  then  new  and  wonderful.  The 
shadows  of  them  had  been  forecast  from  the 
sequestered  Jewish  religion,  but  their  morn- 
ing splendors  were  then  just  rising  above  the 
world's  horizon.  Hence  it  is  not  strange  that 
these  earliest  Christian  writers  found  them 
almost  every  where,  lying  under  many  a 
figure  and  prophecy  where  a  cooler,  and, 
perhaps,  a  less  truly  Bible-instructed  imagi- 
nation, fails  to  detect  their  appearance.  There 
was  to  Christ  a  light  in  the  Old  Testament 
that  the  blinded  Sadducee  saw  not.  Paul 
had  some  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
older  Scripture  utterly  unknown  to  the  ra- 
tionalist, whether  Jewish  or  Christian,  and  the 
use  of  which  seems  nrystical  even  to  true 
lovers  of  the  Sacred  Writings.  And  so  these 
holy  men,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Christian 
life,  had  a  method  of  interpretation  which 
we  should  study  closely  before  we  venture 
rashly  to  reject  it  as  wholly  fanciful  or  absurd. 
Some  of  their  errors  are  very  obvious  ;  we 


18  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

see  very  plainly  where  they  were  wrong  ;  and 
yet  how  often  is  even  the  coldest  reader  com- 
pelled to  wonder  at  the  exceeding  aptness  of 
the  suggested  thought,  the  strange  coincidence 
of  idea,  although  he  himself,  perhaps,  would 
never  have  found  it,  never  even  suspected  its 
existence. 

Is  there  not  some  tenable  ground  lying  be- 
tween the  free  fancies  of  the  earlier,  and  the 
exceeding  dryness  of  the  most  modern  inter- 
pretation ?  We  think  there  is,  and  that  the 
Christian  mind  will,  ere  long,  find  it.  We 
must  make  more  of  the  Scriptures,  or  give 
them  up.  One  thing  is  certain  :  this  ration- 
alistic interpretation,  so  called,  cannot  long 
support  a  living  Christianity.  We  say  it 
even  of  the  better  kind,  such  as  that  of  the 
school  of  Stuart,  Davidson  and  others,  for 
whom  we  feel  all  respect.  Some  of  these  are 
pious  as  well  as  learned  men,  but  their  piety 
was  nurtured  under  a  Scriptural  training 
quite  different  from  that  which  they  are  now 
introducing.     The  traditional   interpretation 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  19 

of  the  Church,  the  living  word,  has  entered 
into  their  spiritual  growth,  and  they  cannot 
wholly  get  rid  of  it.  In  others,  who  have 
had  less  or  more  of  this  old  spiritual  manna, 
the  barrenness  is  becoming  palpable  and  pain- 
ful. The  school  of  which  we  speak  has  great 
learning,  and,  in  one  sense,  great  value,  but 
that  value  is  only  relative.  It  must  rapidly 
depreciate  unless  regarded  as  subordinate  to 
something  else  held  in  reserve.  Without  this, 
its  philological  interest,  now  its  greatest 
charm,  must  soon  give  way  to  some  supersed- 
ing intellectual  advance,  and  then  there  comes 
a  soul-famine,  or  we  must  go  back  to  the  old 
traditional  views  of  "Christ  and  his  king- 
dom "  as  underlying  all  Scripture.  We  must 
revive  that  idea  of  which  the  Patristic  exe- 
gesis is  so  full,  and  in  which  some  contemned 
modern  commentators,  the  "preaching  com- 
mentators," as  they  are  called,  so  greatly 
abound, — the  idea  of  the  Greater  Temple,  the 
higher  spiritual  house,  that  the  Greater  Son 
of  David  was  to  build  for  the  Lord.     We 


20  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

must  take  again,  as  the  key  of  all  right  in- 
terpretation, that  ancient  myth,  if  any  prefer 
to  call  it  so,  of  the  Hero  Messiah,  who  is  an- 
nounced in  the  very  beginning  of  Genesis, 
the  suffering,  warring,  conquering  Messiah, 
whose  last  great  battle  with  the  foe  is  so 
graphically  described  in  the  closing  book  of 
Revelations.     It  is  all  along  one  divine  plan  : 

«£  ov  di)  TajtQcora  diao%i]ti]v  zqioccvte. 

We  trust  it  is  not  pedantic  or  irreverent  to 
accommodate  to  the  immeasurably  higher 
idea  this  introductory  language  of  the  great 
heathen  poet,  "  The  purpose  of  God  has  been 
ever  receiving  its  accomplishment  since  the  an- 
cient day  when  they  two  first  engaged  in  strife^ 
the  dark  Power  of  Evil,  and  He  who  was  to 
become  the  Woman's  promised  Seed,  our 
Prince  I  mm  ami  el,  Son  of  Man,  and  Son  of 
God — He  of  whom  it  is  said  that  even  from 
the  beginning:  of  earth's  creation  his  "delight 
was  with  the  children  of  Adam."     It  is,  in 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  21 

fact  this  sacred  fiov\r\  ever  receiving  its  ful- 
filment, that  proves  the  Bible,  with  all  its 
strange  divisions  into  separate  rhapsodies,  as 
they  may  seem  to  some,  to  be  indeed  the 
work  of  one  mind  and  on  one  great  scheme. 
It  is  "the  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord," 
of  the  great  Theophanies,  of  the  Supernatural 
in  Humanity  ;  it  is  the  History  of  Redemp- 
tion, no  longer  now  the  critics'  fragmentary 
Iliad,  but  the  most  unique  as  it  is  immeasur- 
ably the  grandest  of  epics. 

"All  things  that  are  written  in  the  Law, 
and  in  the  Psalms,  and  in  the  Prophets  con- 
cerning me,  must  be  fulfilled.'7  This  was  the 
ground  of  the  Patristic  interpretation.  Such 
was  the  ground  of  all  interpretation  esteemed 
Christian  until  a  very  late  period.  The  most 
undisputed  tradition  of  the  universal  Church, 
the  consent  of  Latin,  Greek  and  Protestant 
exegesis,  the  verdict,  we  may  say,  of  an 
eighteen  hundred  years  Christianity,  is  not 
to  be  rashly  set  aside  without  risking  the  very 
idea  of  a  supernatural  revelation,  and  running 


22  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

into  utter  despair  of  any  light  from  above.1 
If  an  idea  so  cardinal,  so  central,  so  catholic, 
is  given  up  as  false,  where  is  there  another 
in  which  we  can  expect  to  find  the  unity  of 
the  Bible,  and  without  unity,  who  can  believe 
it  to  be,  in  any  sense,  worth  believing  the 
Book  of  the  Lord. 

The  interpretations  of  the  Fathers  may  be 
often  unbiblical  in  their  special  applications, 
and  yet  the  product  of  a  biblical  spirit  having, 
as  a  whole,  a  truer  view  of  the  mind  of  God 
and  Christ  in  revelation  than  is  entertained 
by  the  piece-meal  critic  who  so  proudly  scorns 
what  he  is  pleased  to  style  their  defective 
knowledge  of  hermeneutics.  They  do,  in- 
deed, often  find  Christ  where  he  is  not  in  the 
words;  their  boasting  contemners  do,  doubt- 
less, more  frequently  overlook  him  where  he 
is  really  present  in  the  spirit.  We  may 
admit  that  Hieronymus  is  often  wrong, 
oftener,  perhaps,  than  the  interpreter  of  the 
modern  school ;  we  may  concede  that  Mathew 
Henry  is  less  learned  (so  it  is  the  fashion  to 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  23 

speak  of  this  humble  Christian,)  than  De 
Wette  or  Davidson  :  still  may  we  believe,  on 
the  deepest  and  most  rational  grounds,  that 
both  the  Latin  Father  and  the  Puritan  divine 
had  really  a  closer  communion,  of  thought 
as  well  as  feeling,  with  the  great  Biblical 
ideas,  and  were,  on  this  account,  with  all  their 
errors,  whether  of  knowledge  or  fancy,  in  the 
truest  and  profoundest  sense,  the  best  inter- 
preters. The  enthusiastic  lover  of  Homer 
may  often  see  in  his  favorite  poet  what  the 
cooler  scholiast  disproves,  and  correctly  dis- 
proves ;  still  we  do  not  hesitate  to  maintain 
not  only  that  our  rhapsodist  has  more  of  the 
Homeric  spirit  but  that  he  is  also — in  respect 
to  all  great  and  essential  ideas — the  best 
guide  to  the  Homeric  thought.  The  scholiast, 
or  the  more  modern  critic  of  a  certain  school, 
may  have  a  keen  eye  for  the  digamma  and 
the  metrical  hiatus,  he  may  be  sharp  in 
scenting  out  anachronisms  and  supposed  in- 
terpolations, he  may  bring  out  the  best  senses 
of  some  long  hidden  archaisms,  he  may  clear 


24  T  H  E    J)  I V  I  N  E    H  U  M  A  N 

up  many  an  interesting  matter  of  ancient 
custom,  or  of  ancient  geography  ;  but  the 
other  has  found  more  than  this,  even  that 
without  which  all  the  rest  is  comparatively 
worthless,  and  to  which  the  professional 
scholiast  may  be  wholly  blind  ;  he  has  dis- 
covered in  Homer  that  which  makes  him  love 
him  and  study  him  intensely  for  his  own  sake, 
and  not  merely  as  a  professional  anno  tat  or 
who  would  be  equally  laborious  and  correct 
on  any  other  ancient  book  in  which  there 
might  be  a  similar  professional  interest.  The 
wondrous  bard  has  raised  his  whole  soul  to 
a  higher  sphere  of  thought  ;  he  is  no  longer 
the  mere  scholiast  ;  he  believes  in  Homer  ;  and 
this  faith  carries  him  over  all  the  difficulties 
that  annotators  have  ever  raised  in  respect 
to  his  matter  or  his  text.  Such  enthusiastic 
admiration  may  have  had,  in  some  respects, 
a  blinding  effect  ;  it  may  have  produced  a 
disposition  to  discover  too  much,  or  what  may 
not  really  exist,  but  it  has  also  led  to  that 
communion  with   the  very  soul  of  the   great 


IN    THE    SCKIPTUKE8.  25 

poet,  to  that  interior  thought  or  spiritual 
sense,  as  we  may  truly  call  it,  without  which 
scholia  on  Homer  are  of  little  more  value 
than  though  they  had  been  wasted  on  the 
most  miserable  of  his  Byzantine  imitators. 

We  believe  that  this  most  modern  inter- 
pretation is  finding  far  too  little  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Given  by  the  divine  mind,  these  holy 
books  must  have  in  them  a  depth  and  a  ful- 
ness of  meaning  that  the  human  intellect  can 
never  exhaust.  If  they  are  holy  books,  if 
they  are  Sacrce  Scriptures,  as  even  the  ne- 
ologist  conventionally  styles  them,  then  can 
there  be  thrown  away  upon  them  no  amount 
of  study,  provided  that  study  is  ever  chas- 
tened by  a  sanctified,  truth-loving  spirit,  that 
rejoices  more  in  the  simplest  teaching,  and  in 
the  simplest  method  of  teaching  from  God, 
than  in  the  most  lauded  discoveries  of  any 
mere  human  science.  Is  it  in  truth  the  word 
of  God — is  it  really  God  speaking  to  us  ? 
then  the  feeling  and  the  conclusion  which  it 
necessitates  are  no  hyperboles.  We  cannot 
3 


26  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

go  too  far  iii  our  reverence,  or  in  our  expec- 
tation of  knowledge  surpassing  in  kind,  if 
not  in  extent.  The  wisdom  of  the  earth,  of 
the  seas,  of  the  treasures  hidden  in  the  rocks 
and  "all  deep  places,"  of  the  subterranean 
world,  or  of  the  stars  afar  off,  brings  us  not  so 
nigh  the  central  truth  of  the  Heavens,  the 
very  mind  and  thought  of  God,  as  one  par- 
able of  Christ,  or  one  of  those  grand  pro- 
phetic figures  through  which  the  light  of  the 
infinite  idea  is  converged,  whilst,  at  the  same 
time,  its  intensity  is  shaded  for  the  tender 
human  vision. 


CHAPTER    III, 

Verbal  Inspiration  —  How  is  it  to  be  understood  ?  —  The  Me- 
chanical Theory  —  Inspiration  through  Human  Emotions  and 
Conceptions  —  The  Divine  in  the  Human  throughout  —  The  Last 
Product  inspired  as  well  as  the  First  —  In  what  Sense  the  Words 
and  Figures  sometimes  more  specially  designed  than  the  Thought 
itself —  Trite  Truths  —  Old  Truths  of  the  Conscience  Recoined 
in  new  and  striking  Language  —  Difference  between  Moral  and 
Scientific  Truth  —  Extent  or  Comprehension  sufficient  in  the  one, 
Intensity  demanded  in  the  other  —  Algebraic  Symbols  —  The 
Love  and  Wrath  of  God  —  The  colder  Ethical  Language  —  Even 
this  contains  Figures,  but  they  are  dead — Illustrations  —  The  Bare 
Formula,  "  God  is  averse  to  Sin,"  compared  with  the  Burning 
Scriptural  Language  —  The  Tender  Language  of  the  Bible  —  Its 
Intense  Humanity  —  Can  the  Infinite  reveal  Himself,  at  all  in 
Language  ? 

It  must,  then,  be  one  of  the  most  unfal- 
tering deductions  of  such  a  subdued  spirit, 
thus  believing  in  revelation  as  a  fact  as  well 
as  an  idea,  that  not  only  its  thought  but  its 
very  language  is  divine.  This  one  may  hold 
without  being  driven  to  that  extreme  view 
of  verbal  inspiration  which  regards  the  sacred 


28  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

penmen  as  mere  amanuenses,  writing  words 
and  painting  figures  dietated  to  them  by  a 
power  and  an  intelligence  acting  in  a  manner 
wholly  extraneous  to  the  laws  of  their  own 
spirits,  except  so  far  as  those  laws  are  merely 
physical  or  mechanical.  We  may  believe 
that  such  divine  intelligence  employed  in  this 
sacred  work,  not  merely  the  hands  of  its 
media,  not  merely  the  vocal  organs  played 
upon  by  an  outward  material  afflatus,  not 
merely  the  mechanical  impressions  of  the 
senses,  or  the  more  inward,  though  still  out- 
wardly reflected  images  of  the  fancy  and  the 
memory,  but  also  the  thoughts,  the  modes  of 
thinking,  modes  of  feeling,  modes  of  conceiv- 
ing, and,  hence,  of  outward  expression — in  a 
word,  the  intellectual,  emotional,  and  imagi- 
native temperaments,  all  their  own,  each 
peculiar  to  the  respective  instruments,  yet 
each  directed,  controlled,  made  holy,  truthful, 
pure,  as  became  the  trustworthy  agents  for 
the  time  being,  of  so  holy  a  work.  The  face 
is  human,   most  distinctly   human,  yet  each 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  29 

lineament,  besides  its  own  outward  expres- 
sion, represents  also  some  part  of  that  photo- 
graphic process  that  had  its  origin  in  the 
world  of  light,  and  came  down  from  "  the 
Father  of  Lights,"  with  whom  there  is  no 
parallax  or  shadow  of  turning. 

In  this  sense,  the  language,  the  very  words, 
the  very  figures  outwardly  used,  yea  the 
etymological  metaphors  contained  in  the 
words,  be  they  ever  so  interior,  are  all  in- 
spired. They  are  not  merely  general  effects, 
in  which  sense  all  human  utterances,  and 
even  all  physical  manifestations  may  be  said 
to  be  inspired,  but  the  specially  designed  pro- 
ducts of  emotions  supernaturally  inbreathed, 
these  becoming  outward  in  thoughts,  and 
these,  again,  having  their  ultimate  outward 
forms  in  words  and  figures  as  truly  designed 
in  the  workings  of  this  chain,  and  thus  as 
truly  inspired,  as  the  thoughts  of  which  these 
words  are  the  express  image,  and  the  inspired 
emotions  in  which  both  thoughts  and  images 
had  their  birth.     One  theory  of  verbal  in- 


30  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

spiration  begins  with  the  language,  as  being 
that  which  is  first  and  directly  given  to  the 
inspired  medium, — that  is,  given  to  him  out- 
wardly, by  impressions  on  the  organs  of  sense, 
or  by  some  action  on  the  sensorium,  or  in 
some  mode,  at  least,  that  is  outward  to  the 
most  interior  spirit ;  the  other  regards  the 
supernatural  action  as  beginning  with  the 
most  interior  spirituality,  and  ending  with 
language  as  the  last  outward  result.  It  is  a 
product  of  a  series,  yet,  as  such  product, 
representative  of  the  entire  spiritual  action 
that  has  terminated  in  it,  and  having  some- 
thing corresponding  to  every  step  of  such 
spiritual  action  in  the  whole  course  of  its 
procession  from  the  primal  generative  emo- 
tion to  the  ultimate  sound  or  sign.  It  is  all 
here,  and  a  devout  study  of  the  language, 
aided  by  the  spirit  that  gave  it,  will  carry 
back  the  soul  from  the  words  to  the  images, 
from  the  images  to  the  thoughts,  from  the 
thoughts  to  the  spiritual  emotion,  or  to  com- 
munion with  the  living  word,  from  whence 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  31 

the  whole  sacred  stream  has  flowed.  "  With 
thee  is  the  fountain  of  life.  In  thy  light  do  ice 
see  light.  All  the  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure; 
they  are  as  choice  silver  tried ;  yea,  seven  times 
])urifed.,J 

•Throughout  the  process  it  is,  indeed,  the 
human  soul  energizing  in  its  psychological 
order,  and  according  to  the  law  of  its  free- 
dom, yet,  from  the  very  incipiency  of  the 
inspiration,  purified,  elevated,  guarded  and 
made  unerring,  by  the  power  and  presence  of 
a  higher  spirit.  The  difference  is  a  wide  one, 
and  yet  this  latter  theory  of  verbal  inspira- 
tion holds  equally  with  the  former  that  the 
very  words  are  inspired  ;  the  peculiar  lan- 
guage employed  (and  sometimes  it  is  very 
peculiar  and  characteristic  of  the  individual 
medium),  the  very  figures,  whether  justified 
by  the  rules  of  ordinary  criticism  or  not,  are 
all  chosen  of  God  ;  they  are  "  choice  words, " 
tried  words,  designed  to  be  just  what  they 
are,  and  for  special  reasons  in  themselves,  or 
their  contexts,  and  not  merely  as  connected 


32  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

with  the  general  system  of  providential  or 
natural  means  in  the  regulation  of  the  uni- 
verse. Like  creation,  it  is  a  supernatural 
beginning,  entering  into  and  setting  in  motion 
a  chain  of  sequences  (natural  if  any  choose 
to  call  them  so)  to  bring  out  results  which  no 
previously  created  nature  alone,  whether  old 
or  new,  would  ever  have  produced.  Thus 
regarded,  the  varied  intellectual  and  emo- 
tional temperaments  of  Isaiah,  of  Ezekiel,  of 
Paul,  and  John,  are  as  directly  made  use  of 
as  the  hands  with  which  they  write,  the 
mouths  with  which  they  speak,  or  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  language  they  employ  as  the 
most  outward  vehicle  of  their  thoughts  and 
emotions. 

In  such  a  view  of  the  matter  we  may  even 
regard  the  figures,  and  the  peculiar  forms  of 
language,  and  the  emotions  connected  with 
them,  as  being,  sometimes,  even  more  the 
object  of  design  than  the  bare  thought  itself, — 
that  is,  as  having  a  greater  share  in  the  de- 
signed arrangements  of  the  Divine  communi- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  33 

cation.  The  thought  is  indeed  the  substance, 
but  the  manner  of  making  it  known,  or,  if 
already  known,  of  impressing  it  on  the  human 
soul,  may  have  been  chiefly  regarded  in  the 
selection  of  means  for  bringing  out  the  writ- 
ten revelation.  Much  of  the  Scriptures  con- 
sists of  declarations  of  truths  that  have  their 
seat  already  in  the  human  conscience,  of  facts 
that  are  otherwise  stored  in  the  human  tra- 
ditional memory.  In  such  cases  the  mode  of 
impressing  them  upon  the  soul,  so  that  they 
may  sink  into  the  interior  life,  in  other  words, 
of  giving  them  moral  power,  becomes  the 
chief  thing.  Trite  truths  are  often  the  most 
valuable  truths,  though  sometimes  divested 
of  force  by  their  very  triteness,  The}^  have 
been  ivorn,  as  the  word  implies,  and  they 
must  be  recoined,  sent  anew  to  the  mint, 
have  a  strong  and  deep  image  stamped  upon 
the  idea,  that  so  the  spiritual  impression  may 
be  restored.  Among  other  variety  of  media, 
God  thus  employs  old  truths  themselves,  as 
the   instruments  of  a  new  revelation.     This 


34  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

recoining  is  not  by  way  of  poetical  hyperbole  ; 
for  all  language  and  all  figures  fall  short  of 
the  intense  reality  of  even  an  old  and  trite 
truth  respecting  God.  Every  power  of 
human  thought,  or  human  imaging,  is  far 
below  the  strength  demanded  when  there  is 
an  attempt  to  represent,  worthily,  the  state 
or  the  attitude  of  the  Eternal  Mind  toward 
moral  good  or  evil.  All  such  truths  may  be 
very  old,  uttered  in  the  conscience,  proclaimed 
through  all  history,  and  yet  the  thought,  even 
as  held  by  the  inspired  mind,  immeasurably 
removed  from  the  unspeakable,  the  incon- 
ceivable, reality.  Logical  abstractions  here 
will  not  do  at  all,  and  as  the  ineffable  idea 
cannot  be  conveyed  to  us  in  its  essence  or  its 
vastness,  the  thought  must  be  gathered,  and 
condensed,  and  sent  down  to  us  through  the 
converging  lens  of  human  emotions  and  hu- 
man language,  as  feebly  typical  thereof. 

Between  moral  truth  and  nil  other  truth 
there  is  an  essential  difference  that  cannot  be 
too  much  dwelt  upon  in  our  reasonings  con- 


I>T    THE    SCRIPTURES.  35 

cerning  a  revelation  and  its  language.  It  is 
a  difference  of  altitude,  we  may  say,  in  dis- 
tinction from  that  of  breadth  or  superficial 
quantity.  Scientific  or  philosophic  ideas, 
when  comprehended  in  their  extent,  or  numeri- 
cal quantity  of  thought,  if  we  may  use  the 
term,  are  the  same  for  all  comprehending 
minds.  Moral  ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
another  element,  namely,  of  intensity,  which 
makes  the  same  logical  statement,  with  the 
same  logical  significance,  an  immensely  dif- 
ferent truth  for  different  souls,  or  for  the  same 
soul  at  different  times.  It  is  only  aside  from 
this  flowing  element  of  intensity,  or  when  it 
is  taken  as  zero,  that  they  become,  like  the 
ideas  of  science,  the  same  for  all  intellects. 
Take,  for  example,  the  oldest  and  most  com- 
mon truth  in  theology  or  ethics,  clothe  it  in 
the  most  general  or  least  impassioned  lan- 
guage, get  words  as  far  removed  as  possible 
from  all  personal  or  sense  imagery  :  Deity  is 
averse  to  sin ;  or,  Deity  approves  of  the  good. 
It   is,    indeed,   a    tremendous    truth    in  any 


36  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

language,  but  how  different,  we  may  say 
again,  for  different  souls,  or  for  the  same  soul 
in  different  moral  states  !  Two  men  may  be 
disputing  about  it ;  their  logical  language  be- 
trays no  difference  of  abstract  idea,  it  is  per- 
fectly consistent  in  every  mode  and  figure 
through  which  they  may  choose  to  carry  their 
polemics,  and  yet,  could  the  soul  of  each  be 
laid  bare  to  the  other  they  could  not  recog- 
nize each  other's  thought.  Or,  as  an  abstract 
proposition  it  might  command  the  assent  of 
two  minds,  and  yet  in  what  a  different  man- 
ner and  measure  may  each  receive,  or  lack, 
the  life  of  the  truth.  To  the  one  the  logical 
terms  deity,  aversion,  sin,  are  like  the  dx  dy 
symbols  of  the  mathematician  ;  they  are  but 
notions,  and  they  answer  their  logical  or 
mathematical  purposes  equally  well  whatever 
qauntities  these  symbols  represent ;  to  the 
other,  every  term  of  the  logical  proposition, 
the  subject,  the  predicate,  the  asserting  cop- 
ula even,  are  "words  that  breathe  and 
thoughts  that  burn,"  into  the  very  soul.     God 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  37 

is  averse  to  sin, — he  loves  the  pure  and  holy. 
There  must  be  in  such  an  aversion,  and  in 
such  a  love  a  burning  intensity  corresponding 
to  the  ineffable  greatness  of  the  ideas,  and 
the  ineffable  glory  of  Him  of  whom  they  are 
predicated.  God  is  either  wholly  indifferent 
to  what  we  call  moral  action,  and  then,  of 
course,  all  moral  ideas  of  every  kind  are  but 
an  empty  delusion,  or  there  is  in  the  wide 
universe  no  wrath,  as  there  is  no  love,  that 
can  be  compared  for  intensity  to  that  of 
Deity.  They  are  measures  of  each  other  ; 
as  is  the  glowing  heat,  so  is  the  melting  ten- 
derness ;  there  is  no  love  if  there  is  no  aver- 
sion, and  this  aversion  is  either  an  infinites- 
imal quantity,  it  is  nothing  at  all,  or  it  is  all 
that  Scripture  includes,  and  more  than  we 
can  conceive,  in  those  fearful  words,  "the 
wrath  of  God." 

The  abstract  logical  declaration  may  be 
given  to  the  reason,  and  the  reason  may 
logically  infer  the  infinity.  Still  it  is  a  specu- 
lative infinity  ;  the  greatness,  thus  computed, 


38  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

is  a  mere  mathematical  greatness  ;  it  is  like 
the  chemist's  talk  of  caloric,  or  the  optician's 
discourse  of  light.  For  divine  truth,  there- 
fore, as  distinguished  from  the  natural  and 
the  speculative,  there  is  needed  that  which 
"  surpasses  knowledge,"  even  the  strength 
and  life  of  the  spiritual  emotion.  Otherwise 
we  philosophically  resolve  the  wrath  into  a 
mere  show  of  wrath,  and  that  as  a  mere 
police  providence  for  the  prevention  of  evil 
which  after  all  our  naming  is,  on  such  a  view, 
only  physical  evil,  whilst  we  resolve  the  love 
into  an  intellectual  approbation,  which  be- 
comes as  morally  powerless  as  it  is,  in  fact, 
philosophically  unintelligible, — approbation 
of  right  having  nothing  by  which  it  can  be 
logically  differenced  from  the  approbation  of 
mathematical  or  physical  truth,  and,  in  fact, 
the  very  idea  of  right  running  down  into  a 
mathematical  conception  of  quantity,  or  cal- 
culation of  physical  pleasures  and  pains.  If 
such  a  truth  of  Deity,  then,  is  to  be  given  to 
human  minds  at  all,  as  a  moral  truth, — that 


IN    THE    SCRIPTUKES.  39 

is,  as  a  power  instead  of  a  notion,  as  a  life 
instead  of  a  dead  formula, — it  must  be 
through  human  language  and  imagery,  as  pre- 
sented in  the  most  vivid  manner  to  human 
conceptions.  In  Divine  truth,  it  must  be  kept 
in  mind,  it  is  depth,  it  is  intensity  we  want, 
more  than  comprehensiveness,  or  mere  com- 
pleteness of  logical  statement.  Hence  the 
anthropomorphism  and  anthropopathism  of 
the  Bible.  Hence  the  awful  Hebrew  figures, 
the  t]s  *pn  "the  burning  heat  of  this  great 
wrath."  And  yet,  what  is  called  the  bare 
abstract  or  ethical  proposition,  as  expressed 
in  terms  purposely  chosen,  it  may  be,  on  ac- 
count of  their  supposed  mildness  and  ab- 
stractness,  may  be  found  to  have  a  tremen- 
dous power,  if  we  only  carry  our  conceptions 
down  to  the  roots  of  the  words,  or  transfer 
the  same  image  from  a  language  where  it  has 
become  trite — that  is,  worn  and  defaced — to 
another,  where  it  comes  out  new  and  full  of 
its  old  life.  Thus  the  declaration  :  "  God  is 
averse  to  sin,"  might  be  chosen  by  some   as 


40  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

being  the  milder  mode  of  speech.  It  does 
not  sound  so  harsh  as  when  we  say,  "  God 
hates."  And  yet,  in  truth,  how  fearful  the 
figure  of  these  mild  words  when  transferred 
to  Deity  :  the  divine  aversion!  God's  turn- 
ing away  his  face  !  It  is  something  he  can- 
not look  upon.  There  is  no  such  turning 
away  in  nature  ;  there  is  no  such  repulsion 
in  all  physical  law.  It  reminds  us  of  the 
language  of  Pindar  when  he  speaks  of  the 
punishment  of  Tartarus. 

tol  (5°  aTtQoaoQarov  oxyjovti  novov,1 

or  of  Habakkuk's  strong  picture — "  Thou  art 
of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil.  Thou 
canst  not  look  upon  iniquity."  Compare  also 
Isaiah  3  : 8,  "Their  tongue  and  their  doings 
are  against  the  Lord,  to  offend  the  eyes  of  his 
glory.11  How  sharp  and  clear  it  there  comes 
out,  and  yet  it  is  the  same  image  so  worn, 
yea,  almost  obliterated,  in  what  seems  our 

1  Pindar  Olymp.  2,  stroph.  4  :  "A  woe  the  eye  cannot 
endure." 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  41 

milder  and  more  abstract  phrase.  It  is  this 
thought,  too,  that  gives  so  much  strength  to 
the  opposite  figure  as  we  so  frequently  find 
it  in  the  earnest  supplications  of  the  Psalm- 
ist— 

"  0,  turn  thee  to  my  soul," 

and  that  ineffable  image,  or  image  of  the  in- 
effable, ''Lift  thou  upon  us,  0  Lord,  the 
light  of  Thy  countenance :  0  hide  not  Thy 
face  from  me  ;  put  not  Thy  servant  away  in 
wrath  ;  Thou  hast  been  my  helper ;  0  leave 
me  not,  0  cast  me  not  away,  thou  God  of 
my  salvation."  The  ethical  formula  has  been 
rendered  cold  and  dead  in  the  hands  of  the  un- 
feeling logician,  but  when  breathed  upon  by 
the  Living  Spirit,  and  thus  recoined  and 
stamped  anew  for  the  living  soul,  it  has  all 
the  emotion  of  the  most  impassioned  lan- 
guage, uNe  avertas  faciem  tuam  a  me"  "  0 
turn  not  thou  away."  Thine  aversion  is  death. 
11  In  thy  favor  is  life  f  "  in  thy  presence  there 
is  fulness  of  joy  for  ever  more." 


42  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

The  reasoning  emplo}^ed  applies  not  only 
to  language  expressive  of  the  stern  and  fear- 
ful in  the  divine  relations  to  us,  but  also  to 
those  moving  expostulations  that  figuratively 
clothe  themselves  in  the  most  tender  of  hu- 
man images  and  emotions.  What  words 
shall  express  the  love  of  God  to  his  redeemed? 
M  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that 
she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son 
of  her  womb  ?  Yea,  she  may  forget,  yet 
will  not  I  forget  thee,  saith  the  Lord  :  I  have 
graven  thee  on  the  palms  of  my  hands  ;  thy 
walls  are  ever  before  me."  Is  this  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Infinite  ?  Does  the  Eternal 
Mind  thus  speak  to  us,  not  only  through 
thoughts  that  necessarily  run  into  the  molds 
of  the  temporal  and  the  finite,  but  in  figures 
and  images  so  purely,  so  intensely  human  ? 
Yes,  we  answer,  it  is  the  language  of  the  In- 
finite, when  He  converses  with  the  finite. 
But  are  these  His  very  words  ?  Yes,  His 
very  words,  chosen  and  arranged  in  every 
lineament  and  fibre  of  their  Hebrew  tender- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  43 

ness.  Why  not?  Why  stumble  at  surface 
objections  when  the  whole  difficulty  lies  far 
deeper.  It  is  involved  in  the  question  :  Can 
the  Infinite  reveal  Himself  at  all  in  language 
in  its  widest  sense  of  speech  or  outward  sign, 
or  in  short,  through  any  finite  medium  ? 
Why  talk  of  anthropopathism,  as  if  there 
were  some  special  absurdity  covered  by  this 
sounding  term,  when  any  revelation  conceiv- 
able must  be  anthropopathic.  If  made  sub- 
jectively— as  some  claim  it  should  be  made  if 
made  at  all — that  is,  to  all  men  directly, 
through  thoughts  and  feelings  inwardly  ex- 
cited in  each  human  soul  without  any  use  of 
language,  still  it  must  be  anthropopathic. 
There  is  no  escape  from  it.  Whatever  comes 
in  this  way  to  man  must  take  the  measure  of 
man,  and  every  essential  objection  now  made 
would  still  have  the  same  essential  force. 
The  thoughts  and  feelings  thus  aroused  would 
still  be  human,  and  partake  of  the  human 
finity  and    imperfection.       In   their    highest 


44  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

state  they  will  be  but  shadows  of  the  infinite, 
figures  of  ineffable  truths.  Carry  out  the 
objection,  then,  and  it  is  a  denial  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  any  communication  between  God 
and  man . 


CHAPTER    IV. 

The  Denial  of  the  Supernatural  —  This  objection  of  Anthro- 
popathism  involves  the  Denial  of  the  Supernatural  —  It  allows  of 
nothing  aside  from  the  One  Total  Movement  of  the  Universe  — 
The  Human  Soul  demands  the  Supernatural  —  The  Horror  of 
Naturalism  —  Analogy  between  the  Divine  and  the  Human  Su- 
pernatural —  Credibility  of  the  Reason  as  opposed  to  the  Credi- 
bility of  the  Sense  —  The  Objection  to  Miracles  grounded  solely 
on  the  Latter  —  The  Real  Wonder,  Why  does  not  God  often er 
speak  to  us  ?  —  The  Supernatural  in  the  Morning  and  Noon  of 
the  World  —  Will  come  again  in  the  Evening  —  Has  its  place  in 
the  Great  Chronology,  or  Order  of  the  Ages. 

But  we  cannot  stop  here.  Such  denial  of 
all  intercourse  between  the  Infinite  and  the 
finite  mind  can  only  end  in  pantheism,  or  the 
perfect  identification  of  God  with  the  world. 
As  there  can  be  no  special,  so  there  can  be 
no  supernatural  manifestation  of  any  kind. 
There  can  be  no  action  in  nature,  or  upon 
nature,  that  is  not  through  the  whole,  and  so 
truly  an   action  of  the  whole.     There  is  no 


46  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

supernatural ;  there  can  be  no  supernatural. 
Now  the  man  who  asserts  this,  unless  he  in- 
tends the  merest  play  of  words,  making  every 
thing  to  be  natural  simply  because  it  is  some 
how  in  the  universal  system  of  things,  has 
undertaken  a  defence  of  a  position  more  in- 
credible, that  is,  more  opposed  to  the  common 
judgments  and  feelings  involved  in  the  very 
laws  of  our  thinking,  than  all  the  legends  of 
all  the  revelations,  real  or  supposed,  that 
have  ever  claimed  the  credence  of  mankind. 
This  argument  of  incredibility  is  commonly 
used  against  the  miraculous,  but  it  may  be 
turned  the  other  way,  at  least  in  one,  and 
that  its  highest,  aspect.  The  credibility  of 
sense,  we  may  admit,  is  much  opposed  to  any 
special  movement  in  nature,  or  to  any  inter- 
ruption of  its  totality ;  the  credibility  of 
reason,  if  we  may  employ  that  term  for  some 
of  the  most  interior  as  well  as  most  catholic 
decisions  of  the  soul,  is  powerfully  in  the 
other  scale.  There  is  something  within  us 
that  demands  the  supernatural,  that  creates 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  47 

a  disposition  to  believe  in  it,  yea,  an  impas- 
sioned longing  for  it,  even  though  that  long- 
ing be  so  seldom  sensibly  gratified.  It  is  as 
much  a  part  of  our  spiritual  constitution  as 
the  habitual  belief  in  nature's  regularity  ;  it 
is  even  a  stronger  and  more  interior  acting  of 
the  soul,  inasmuch  as  it  has  maintained  itself, 
in  all  ages,  against  so  much  of  adverse  out- 
ward association.  It  is,  in  this  respect,  like 
the  kindred  belief  in  the  soul's  existence  after 
death.  In  either  case,  there  is  something 
within  us  that  holds  us  up,  and  carries  us  on, 
in  spite  of  sense.  The  most  visible  of  phe- 
nomena are  against  the  one  ;  common  expe- 
rience opposes  the  other  ;  yet  both  hold  on 
their  way  in  the  world,  though  miracles  are 
few  and  far  between,  and  fewer  still  come 
back  from  the  unknown  land.  Generations 
pass  away  and  are  seen  no  more  ;  all  things 
seem  to  continue  as  they  were  from  any 
known  beginning,  and  yet  the  disposition  to 
believe,  and  the  belief  itself,  are  strong  as 
ever.     Instead  of  asking  the  aid  of  any  in- 


48  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ductive  reasoning  for  its  proof,  it  defies  the 
power  of  any  such  reasoning,  or  of  any  rea- 
soning, to  drive  it  from  the  human  soul.  So 
also  is  there  a  "law  in  our  minds"  warring 
with  the  common  experience  of  the  slow  un- 
varied movements  of  the  physical  world. 
We  see  the  strength  of  it  when  science  has 
laid  bare  evidence  of  what  looks  like  some 
ancient  break  in  nature's  movements.  It  is 
one  of  the  great  charms  of  our  modern  ge- 
ology. The  naturalist,  with  all  his  fondness 
for  talking  of  law  and  causation,  cannot  con- 
ceal the  interest  he  takes  in  such  discovery. 
He  loves  to  find  it  so  ;  it  is  not  against  his 
expectation  when  he  does  find  it  so.  The 
pleasure  he  experiences  reveals  the  law  of 
his  spirit,  higher,  deeper,  and  more  unchang- 
ing than  any  law  of  nature.  The  discovery, 
we  say,  when  made,  is  found  to  be  just  what 
might  have  been  expected  ;  it  is  in  the  highest 
degree  rational,  yea,  truly  credible  ;  and  even 
some  who  are  most  opposed  to  the  Scriptural 
miraculous  as  bringing  too  near  the  idea  of  a 


IN     THE     SCRIPTURES.  49 

personal  God,  do  yet  rejoice  in  a  supernatural 
that  is  so  ancient  and  so  far  off. 

The  thought  of  being  ever  buried  in  this 
shoreless,  bottomless,  sea  of  nature,  of  being 
as  truly  in  it  and  parts  of  it  whilst  in  our 
thinking,  conscious  state,  as  when  our  dead 
atoms  are  dispersed  throughout  its  measure- 
less abyss,  is  suffocating  to  the  rational  soul. 
It  is  a  living  death,  and  how  any  thinking 
mind  can  bear  it,  yea,  even  be  fond  of  it,  is 
the  real  marvel.  Supernatural  ourselves,  as 
we  consciously  are,  we  may  reasonably  ex- 
pect, and  mankind  have  ever  thus  expected, 
j  to  be  conversed  with,  sometimes,  in  a  super- 
natural manner.  Constantly  performing  acts 
in  opposition  to,  as  well  as  in  accordance  wil  h, 
the  inward  and  surrounding  nature,  nothing 
is  more  natural,  if  we  may  use  a  seeming 
paradox,  than  that  we  should  expect  a  similar 
display  of  power  from  the  higher  or  super- 
human plane.  To  our  microscopic  vision,  it 
is,  indeed,  true,  that  the  greater  divine  move- 
ments must  necessarily  appear  immensely 
4 


50  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

slow,  or  rather,  with  immense  intervals  be- 
tween them  as  computed  by  our  time  meas- 
ures, and  as  compared  with  our  own  rapid 
changings  ;  but  shall  God  ever  be  bound 
where  we  are  free  ?  "Is  there  in  us,"  says 
Cicero,  repeating  the  argument  of  Socrates, 
"  Is  there  in  us  mind  and  reason,  and  shall 
there  be  mind  nowhere  else  in  the  universe  ?  " 
It  is  an  argument  for  the  existence  of  a  God, 
but  it  is  also  an  argument  for  the  divine  su- 
pernatural and  its  manifestations.  Necesse 
est  Deum  haec  ipsa  habere  majora.  Is  there 
in  us  a  power  of  will,  and  do  we  exercise 
that  power  to  control  the  physical  forces 
around  us,  within  certain  limits,  so  that  they 
do  not  produce  the  effects  they  would  have 
produced  without  this  uncaused  spiritual  in- 
tervention,— is  there  in  us,  we  say,  such  a 
supernatural  power,  and  shall  it  be  nowhere 
else  in  the  worlds  above  us — in  God,  or  in 
higher  superhuman  beings  acting  as  the  min- 
isters of  God  ? 

The   analogy,  it  may  be  said,  is  not  con- 


IN    THE    SCKIPTURES.  51 

elusive  :  it  is  but  analogy,  after  all,  and  we 
cannot  thus  reason  from  the  finite  to  the  in- 
finite. And  yet,  if  it  be  true  analogy,  and 
not  mere  fancy,  it  must  have  a  meaning.  It 
is  avd  Idyov,  it  is  in  ratio,  or  reason,  with 
something  higher,  and  we  must  infer  from  it 
that  there  is  that  in  God  which  corresponds 
to  this  contra-natural  or  spiritual  action  in 
man.  This  reasoning  from  ourselves  is  no 
sense  induction,  like  that  which  denies  the 
credibility  of  the  supernatural,  or  of  a  revela- 
tion to  the  finite,  but  is  truly  a  priori,  as 
grounded  on  ideas  we  find  within  us,  or  laws 
of  thought  out  of  which  we  cannot  think. 
If  the  finite  rational  soul  is  an  image  of  God, 
then  such  analogy,  though  falling  immeasura- 
bly short,  is,  at  least,  in  the  true  direction  ; 
it  is  in  the  line  of  the  absolute  verity,  and 
this  is  much,  however  remote  the  sighted  ob- 
ject, or  however  reduced  the  scale  on  which 
the  sighting  index  turns.  The  philosophic 
abstraction,  on  the  other  hand,  commencing 
with  the  unknown  infinite,  may  be   a  total 


52  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

aberration  from  the  very  beginning.  In  the 
other  view,  the  compass  points  right,  how- 
ever distant  the  unseen  pole  to  which  it 
tends.  It  is  like  the  mathematician's  infinite 
series  ;  we  may  not  count  their  number,  but 
we  know  the  law  of  the  final  term.  Hence 
may  we  rationally  conclude,  that  God  has 
given  for  our  guidance  this  analogy  or  pro- 
portion of  ideas  ;  and  if  so,  it  must  have  this 
closing  cadence,  or  else  there  is  an  abrupt 
and  painful  break,  an  unresolved  dissonance 
in  the  harmony  of  thought.  In  a  mere  fan- 
ciful analogy,  such  dissonance  is  soon  de- 
tected ;  but  this  is  one  of  the  most  perfect 
kind,  the  more  magnified,  the  more  correct ; 
it  is  without  a  deviation  or  a  suspension  as 
far  as  our  reason  traces  it ;  it  is,  too,  in  most 
perfect  accordance  with  Holy  Writ,  and  with 
that  language  its  author  has  chosen  as  most 
peculiarly  and  deeply  human.  Even  if  it  is 
not  conclusive,  as  they  say, — even  if  we  can- 
not follow  it  out  to  the  point  of  logical  ne- 
cessity, that  is,  to  that  last  tei  n  in  the  series 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  53 

where  one  idea  is  seen  clearly  lying  within 
the  other,  still,  as  analogy  merely,  it  accounts 
for  the  universal  feeling,  and  this  is  all  that 
is  demanded  for  our  present  argument  of 
credibility. 

The  supernatural  is  credible.  It  has  its 
ground  in  that  law  of  thought  which  is  most 
catholic  in  our  humanity,  which  is  most  in- 
wardly removed  from  all  surface  differen- 
ces ;  and  hence  it  is  so  hard  to  understand 
men  who  seem  to  be  of  the  opposite  temper- 
ament, who  believe  that  all  is  nature,  and 
seem  to  be  fond  of  so  believing.  The  won- 
der, in  fact,  is  not  so  much  the  occurrence  of 
the  supernatural  as  its  rarity.  Why  is  there 
not  more  of  it  ?  Why  this  painful  reserve  ? 
All  right,  doubtless,  so  faith  answers  ;  for  it 
requires  faith  sometimes,  a  divine  faith  we 
mean,  to  have  a  true  belief  in  the  natural  as 
well  as  in  the  supernatural.  But  still  the 
spirit  asks,  and  may  ask  with  reverence  and 
humility,  "Why  standest  thou  afar  off?" 
Why  do  not  the  heavens  open  ?  Why  does  not 


54  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

G-od  talk  to  us  more  frequently  ?  Why  does 
He  not  speak  to  us  in  our  own  human  lan- 
guage, our  own  human  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, instead  of  those  dull  unchanging  signals 
of  nature  that  carry  the  general  dispatches 
of  the  universe,  (the  physical  universe  with 
its  exclusively  physical  intelligence)  but  have 
no  news  for  us,  no  special  word  for  us,  no 
look  of  recognition  for  us,  nothing,  in  short, 
to  make  us  feel  that  we  are  either  generic- 
ally  or  individually  before  the  Infinite  Mind, — 
that  God  is  thinking  of  us,  not  merely  as 
present  somewhere  in  His  vast  and  total 
thought,  but  as  a  race  remembered,  as  indi- 
viduals known  by  name,  known  in  our  finity, 
known,  in  some  sense,  "  even  as  we  know." 

If  the  vision  tarry  we  wait  long  for  it ;  we 
may  never  see  it  in  our  brief  earthly  stay, 
but  we  cannot  surrender  the  thought.  To 
believe  that  there  never  has  been  anything 
above  nature,  that  there  never  will  be  any- 
thing out  of  nature,  our  souls,  if  we  have 
souls,  tell  us  is  nothing  but  sheer  atheism. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  55 

We  may  believe  in  "  a  God  who  hideth  him- 
self/' but  not  in  one  who  hideth  himself  for- 
ever. The  Scriptures  do,  indeed,  tell  us  that 
"God  covereth  himself  with  light  as  with  a 
garment,"  but  this  is  very  different  from  be- 
ing bound  in  an  everlasting  physical  causa- 
tion without  interruption  or  suspension.  This 
enrobing  light  is  His  supernatural  glory,  and 
finite  eyes  may  see  it,  although  they  may 
never  approach  the  direct  vision  of  Him  who 
dwelleth  therein.  But  the  thought  of  an  end- 
less nature  is  insupportable.  Such  an  eter- 
nal future  would  seem  to  necessitate,  in  our 
thinking,  a  like  eternal  past  of  uninterrupted 
physical  causation  ;  and  then,  where  are  we  ? 
Every  argument  for  the  existence  of  God  is 
gone  ;  the  very  notion  is  gone.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  have  been  beginnings  and 
transitions  in  the  past,  then  will  there  be 
again  beginnings,  and  transitions,  and  inter- 
ruptions, and  suspensions  in  nature,  in  other 
words,  displays  of  supernatural  power.  A 
little  thinking  shows  us  how  much  more  rap- 


56  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

idly  the  shadow  must  move,  or  seem  to  move, 
over  the  plain  of  our  magnified  earthly  his- 
tory, than  on  "  the  dial  plate  of  eternity,"  and 
so  we  rationally  make  allowance,  in  our  esti- 
mate, for  the  chronological  rates  in  the  vast 
divine  epochs  as  compared  with  our  swiftly 
passing  days.  The  immensely  enlarging  lens 
of  our  microscopic  sense  is  all  filled  with  the 
vision  of  the  natural,  but  our  reason  cannot 
give  up  the  thought  of  the  higher  move- 
ment. We  cannot  surrender  the  idea,  that 
in  this  greater  chronology  there  are  truly 
"years  of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High," 
great  transition  periods  wherein  '"things  do 
not  continue  in  all  respects  as  they  were," 
but  the  scenes  are  shifted  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  new  acts  in  the  drama  of  the  ages. 
We  cannot  3a eld  the  thought  of  the  super- 
natural, not  only  as  having  been  in  the  days 
of  our  fathers  when  the  world  was  new,  but 
as  expected  still  to  be  verified  somehow,  if 
not  in  our  own  individual  experience,  at  least 
somewhere,   and    at   some   time,  in  the  ex- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  57 

perience  of  the  slow,  long-living  race.  In 
the  evening,  as  in  the  morning  and  noon 
of  humanity,  there  will  be  the  supernatural 
light.  It  must  come  again  before  the  career 
of  earth  is  run,  or  surely  then,  at  that  great 
ovvTtleia  tov  alcovoq,  or  "reckoning  of  the 
ages,"  when  the  natural,  "which  is  first," 
shall  be  found  to  have  been  only  a  patient 
training,  or  a  training  of  patience,  for  the 
higher  spiritual  experience.  Is,  then,  the 
supernatural  credible  in  any  sense — that  is, 
may  the  Infinite  Mind  and  Power  ever  act 
out  of  the  whole  of  nature,  or  manifest  him- 
self to  the  finite  in  any  partial  separate  finite 
acts  or  forms,  then  is  it  credible  that  He  may 
so  manifest  himself  to  the  human  soul,  and 
thus  converse  with  the  human  soul.  Then 
is  revelation  credible,  a  revelation  in  lan- 
guage, a  written  revelation,  a  book  revela- 
tion. If  reason  is  not  shocked  at  this,  if  rea- 
son demands  it,  though  sense  or  the  majority 
of  experiences  be  against  it,  then  is  it  also 
credible  and  rational,  yea,  demanded  by  this 
4* 


58  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

higher  law  of  the  spirit,  that  such  revelation 
should  be  in  the  language  that  is  the  most 
human,  in  words,  figures,  and  representative 
phenomena,  most  obvious,  most  primary,  to 
the  universal  human  race. 


C  H  A  P  T  E 11     V . 


The  objection  must  go  farther  —  No  Divine  Knowledge  of  the 
Finite  —  God  cannot  know  our  Knowledge  — We  are  known  only 
in  the  Total  Idea  —  The  God  of  the  Bible  transcends  this  —  He 
Thinks  our  Finite  Thoughts  as  well  as  his  own  Eternal  Thought  — 
Feels  Our  Feelings  —  Knows  our  Consciousness  —  "In  Him  we 
Live,  and  Move,  and  Are" — The  Scripture  Pantheism  —  The  False 
Pantheism —The  real  Danger,  the  Denial  of  the  Divine  Personality 
—  The  Seclusion  of  the  Soul  —  God  knows  it  by  a  knowledge,  not 
A  Posteriori  from  Effects,  or  A  Priori  from  Causes,  but  Present 
and  Ever  Knowing — Does  God  know  our  Sin  as  we  know  it  ? — 
The  Great  Mystery —  The  Transcendental  Objection  itself  Anthro- 
popathic  —  Because  "We  cannot  ascend  to  God,  therefore,  it  says , 
He  cannot  come  down  to  us — The  New  Platonic  Essence,  above 
Knowing  as  above  Being  Known  —  The  Scientific  theism  —  Con- 
trast of  the  Bible  Language  —  Sublime  Ascriptions  of  Personality. 


But  neither  is  there  any  stopping  here. 
He  who  makes  such  denial  of  the  anthropo- 
pathic,  and  hence  of  the  supernatural,  as 
being  both  of  them  impossible  or  irrational, 
must  take  another  step.  If  G-od  cannot  so 
separate  himself  from  nature  as  to  make  a 
revelation  of  the  finite,  and  to  the  finite,  then 
he  cannot  be  truly  said  to  know  the  finite  as 


60  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

such.  For  thus  to  know,  according  to  any 
conception  we  can  have  of  it,  and  on  which 
we  can  ground  any  assertion  respecting  it,  is 
as  much  finite  as  the  thinking  or  speaking 
connected  with  the  knowing  or  the  making 
known  the  knowledge.  The  Infinite  intelli- 
gence becomes  thus  an  intelligence  only  of 
infinity  and  totality.  It  cannot  think  the 
finite  or  the  partial.  They  are  utterly  below 
it,  and  thus  far  away  out  of  its  sight,  even  as 
the  infinite  is  above  us.  We  are,  therefore, 
unknown  to  God  in  any  such  way,  either  in 
degree  or  kind,  as  we  are  known  to  ourselves. 
So  far,  indeed,  as  the  knowing,  or  mode  of 
knowing,  whether  regarded  as  action  or  pas- 
sion, is  a  part  of  the  knowledge,  it  may  be 
said  we  are  utterly  unknown  to  him.  He 
has  no  scientia  of  our  conscientia  ;  He  does  not 
know  our  consciousness  ;  for  surely  he  cannot 
know  our  knowledge — all  our  knowledge — 
unless  he  know  it,  too,  as  we  know  it.  He 
cannot  think  our  thoughts  as  we  think  them  ; 
and  so  it  would  follow  that  he  cannot  truly 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  61 

think  them  as  they  are.  He  cannot  think 
our  thoughts,  as  we  cannot  think  his,  and  so 
it  would  follow,  that  as  we  cannot  know  the 
divine,  so  he  cannot  know  the  human  as  well 
as  the  divine.  Now  who  shall  dare  assert 
this  ?  "  Who  hath  so  known  the  mind  of  the 
Lord,"  that  under  the  pretense  of  elevating, 
he  should  thus  actually  venture  to  limit  the 
divine  knowledge.  '  Wherein,  too,  is  this 
transcendental  conception  airy  better  than 
the  extra-mundane  conceit  of  the  sensual 
Epicurean  ?  That  is  anthropopathic,  it  sa}7s  ; 
it  is  a  representation  of  sensual  ease  }7ielding 
up  to  nature  the  care  of  the  world.  But 
may  there  not  be  a  similar  charge  against 
the  loftier  view,  as  it  would  assume  to  be  ? 
With  all  its  affected  spirituality,  it  becomes 
itself  only  another  form  of  this  so  much 
dreaded  anthropopathism  ;  it  limits  Deity  in 
his  relations  to  us  by  the  same  rule  that 
limits  us  in  our  relations  to  him.  We  cannot 
rise  to  God,  and  therefore,  it  anthropopathi- 
cally  reasons,  He  cannot  come  down  to  us. 


62  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

But  the  God  of  the  Scriptures  transcends 
any  such  limiting  conception.  "  He  inhabit- 
ed eternity  ;"  "He  filleth  all  things."  Philo- 
sophy may  talk  ever  so  proudly,  she  can 
never  go  beyond  this.  His  unchangable 
abode  is  the  infinity  of  time  and  space,  and 
yet  he  thinks  the  finite  truly,  as  finite,  and 
as  it  is  thought  by  the  finite  intelligence. 
This  is  the  transcending  mystery  of  the  Bible  ; 
it  presents  both  these  wondrous  aspects  of 
Deity,  and  that,  too,  without  betraying,  on 
the  part  of  the  divine  messengers,  any  feeling 
of  dissonance,  any  misgiving  sense  of  con- 
tradiction. God  is  so  far  off  that  all  differ- 
ences of  space  and  rank  vanish  before  him, 
and  yet  is  he  "  nigh,  very  nigh  to  every  soul 
that  calleth  upon  him."  "The  Heaven 
and  Heaven  of  Heavens  cannot  contain  him, 
and  yet  he  hath  a  house  on  earth  where  he 
records  his  name."  "All  nations  are  as  noth- 
ing before  him,  yea,  less  than  nothing  and 
vanity,"  and  yet  he  hath  a  people,  a  chosen 
people,   a  very  peculiar   people,   whom   he 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  63 

guides  with  a  cloud  by  day  and  a  pillar  of 
fire  by  night.  "  He  dwelleth  in  the  high  and 
holy  place,  yet  hath  he  respect  unto  the  con- 
trite and  the  lowly."  He  hath  given  all 
things  their  law,  and  yet  "he  stoopeth  down," 
in  the  minuteness  of  his  providence,  to  behold 
every  event  that  takes  place  in  the  heavens 
and  in  the  earth.  "  He  knows  the  end  from 
the  beginning."  In  that  Eternal  Mind  lies 
ever  undivided  the  total  idea,  the  total  move- 
ment, the  total  time  of  the  immeasurable 
universe  ;  "all  things  stand  forever  according 
to  his  unchanging  ordinance;"  "He  maketh 
peace  in  his  high  places,"  and  yet  he  hears 
continually  the  prayers  of  his  elect.  "  He 
putteth  their  tears  in  his  bottle,"  "He 
numbereth  the  hairs  of  their  heads."  Both 
views  belong  to  the  greatness  as  well  as  the 
harmony  of  the  divine  character, — great  in 
its  condescending  depths,  as  in  its  ineffable 
height.  God  sees  all  things  in  their  causes, 
he  sees  also  all  things  in  their  effects  and  as 
effects,  even  as  they  are  seen  and  known  by 


64  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

us  :  He  sees  them  in  the  infinite,  total  idea, 
He  sees  them  also  as  parts,  and  in  their  ever 
varied,  ever  varying  relations :  He  sees  them 
as  ever  present,  He  sees  them  in  their  flow- 
ing successions  ;  He  sees  them  in  their  time- 
less being,  before  all  worlds,  He  sees  them 
as  they  are  carried  out  in  the  utmost  finity  of 
their  sense  or  phenomenal  generation.  He 
is  the  ^ Ay.ivi]%oQ)  the  Immovable,  whom  Aris- 
totle sought  to  comprehend — "He  changeth 
not"  and  yet,  as  the  same  philosopher  at- 
tempts to  describe  him,  so  the  Scriptures  set 
him  forth :  He  is  the  aqp]  fy  t\  ovaia 
zvtqyua,1  the  Eternal  Principle,  whose  very 
essence  is  energy;  "He  speaks  and  it  is 
done,  He  commands  and  it  stands  ;"  He  is 
ever  acting  in  all  the  changing  appearances 
of  nature  ;  "He  sendeth  forth  his  command- 
ment upon  the  earth  ;  his  Word  runneth  very 
swiftly." 

The  other  view  affects  to  be  the  philoso- 
phical one  ;  it  assumes  to  take  the  transcend- 

1  Aristot.  Metaph.  xi.  (xii.)  c.  0. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  65 

ing  aspect  of  deity,  excluding  altogether  the 
side  that  is  turned  to  us,  the  finite  side  of  the 
Infinite,  as  we  need  not  fear  to  call  it,  or 
that  in  which  God  manifests  himself  to  us  as 
finite  beings.  It  looks  upon  the  Scriptural 
style  as  a  mere  accommodation  to  lower 
minds,  and  yet  it  is  itself  as  deficient  in  gran- 
deur as  in  moral  power.  Its  deity  is  an  ab- 
stract idol  as  false  as  any  that  was  ever  imag- 
ined or  fashioned  by  the  sense,  as  much 
removed  from  all  sympathy  and  all  commu- 
nion as  the  veriest  block  that  was  ever  wor- 
shipped in  a  heathen  temple.  But  "  our 
God  is  a  great  God  and  a  great  king  above 
all  Gods  ;  in  His  hand  lie  all  the  deep  places 
of  the  earth  ;"  in  that  fathomless  intelligence 
lie  all  the  knowledges,  and  experiences,  and 
even  sentiencies  of  finite  earthly  souls.  Why 
should  we  fear  to  take  this  ground.  "We  call 
God  the  Infinite  Reason,  the  all  comprehend- 
ing reason,  why  is  He  not  also  the  all  pervad- 
ing Knowledge,  the  eternal  Experience,  the 
universal   Sense?      If  we   are   made  in  the 


bb  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

image  of  God,  then  must  there  be  that  in  the 
Original,  which,  however  transcending,  cor- 
responds to  what  is  essential  in  the  features 
and  constitution  of  the  spiritual  copy.  "In 
Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being." 
If  this  be  pantheism,  it  is  the  pantheism  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  we  need  not  be  afraid  of 
it.  There  is  another  kind  that  has  grown 
out  of  aversion  to  the  deeply  religious  idea 
of  the  divine  personality,  and  which  would 
mimic  the  great  truth  whilst  stripping  it  of 
all  that  would  make  it  precious.  But  "our 
God  is  greater  than  the  God  "  of  the  false 
pantheism,  greater  than  the  philosopher's 
transcendental  deity.  He  is  all-mighty,  and 
can  do  all  this  that  they,  in  the  weakness  of 
their  human  conception,  deny  to  Him.  He 
can  have  His  infinite  and,  at  the  same  time, 
his  finite  side,  of  being.  He  has  his  own 
eternal  thought,  and  can  also  think,  and  does 
constantly  think  the  thoughts  of  time.  He 
is  all  knowing,  and,  therefore,  more  intim- 
ately present   in    our  souls,  yea   spiritually 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  67 

nearer  to  us,  we  may  say,  than  we  are  to 
ourselves. 

Do  we  sufficiently  think  what  is  meant  by 
the  proposition,  God  knows  us  ?  It  cannot 
be  merely  the  knowledge  of  induction,  that 
is,  of  causes  from  effects,  however  accurate 
and  complete  ;  it  must  be  something  more 
than  the  converse  or  complement  of  this,  or 
the  a  priori  knowledge  of  effects  from  causes. 
It  cannot  be  perfect  knowledge,  an  all  know- 
ing of  all  that  we  are,  unless  there  be  an 
ever  present  spiritual  beholding,  a  constant 
actual  knowing  of  our  knowledge,  and  think- 
ing of  our  thoughts.  It  is  an  idea  most 
precious  as  well  as  fearful,  and  we  may, 
therefore,  dwell  upon  it  for  a  moment,  though 
leading  to  a  seeming  digression.  Who  is  so 
unthinking  as  not  to  be  sometimes  impressed 
with  that  great  mystery  of  our  spiritual  being, 
his  own  utter  isolation  from  an  all-surround- 
ing universe  ?  How  perfect  the  seclusion  in 
which  every  individual  finite  soul  dwells  apart 
from  every  other !     We  do,  indeed,  hold  an 


68  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

imperfect  intercourse  by  telegraphic  signals 
passing  through  matter,  but  walls  of  adamant 
could  not  more  effectually  separate  us  from 
direct  spiritual  communing  than  the  state  in 
which  God  has  created  us.  There  is  some- 
thing impressively  solemn  in  this  deep  seclu- 
sion, this  everlasting  loneliness.  No  other 
soul  knows  us  ;  no  other  finite  spiritual  eye 
has  ever  seen  us  ;  the  nearest  friend  has  only 
inferred  our  existence  ;  like  the  natural  be- 
lief in  a  Gocl,  "our  invisible  things  are  un- 
derstood from  the  things  that  are  seen/'7  even 
our  inward  power  and  humanity.  The 
thought  is  sometimes  our  pride  ;  it  places  in 
such  gloomy  grandeur  each  soul's  inviolable 
individuality.  It  may  also  give  rise  to  a 
feeling  tinged  with  melancholy.  0,  could 
another  know  us,  we  are  sometimes  ready  to 
exclaim,  just  as  we  know  ourselves  ;  we  would 
be  willing  even  that  he  should  know  our  sins, 
could  he  also  feel  and  know,  to  the  fullest 
extent,  all  the  palliations  to  which  they  are 
entitled  in  human  eyes. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  G9 

The  most  unthinking  must  have  some  ex- 
perience of  this.  There  are  times  when  we 
are  lonesome,  insupportably  lonesome,  and 
then,  is  it  fear,  or  joy,  or  are  they  both  com- 
bined in  the  thought  that  there  is,  indeed, 
one  who  does  thus  know  us.  It  may  startle 
us  when  we  think  of  all  that  is  to  be  seen, 
and  more,  perhaps,  than  our  own  inner  sense 
has  ever  seen,  in  that  deep  dwelling  of  our 
spirituality  ;  truly  is  there  pain,  but  this  is 
not  the  only  feeling  ;  there  may  be  consola- 
tion in  the  thought,  yea  even  strength  and 
joy.  There  is  one  Soul  that  knows  us,  per- 
sonally, intimately,  thoroughly, — knows  us 
not  by  media,  by  signals  outward  or  interior, 
not  by  induction  from  effects,  or  by  fore- 
knowledge from  causes,  but  by  direct  and 
immediate  presence,  by  more  than  presence, 
even  by  spirit-pervading,  interpenetrating 
spirit, — not  only  an  occasional  or  partial  be- 
holding, but  an  unintermitted  knowledge  of 
our  all,  our  sense,  our  memory,  our  intelli- 
gence,   our  consciousness,   even    when    least 


70  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

sensible,  least  known,  least  conscious  to  our- 
selves. ;t  Thou  hast  possessed  my  reins  ; 
thou  knowest  my  thought  ;  when  I  awake  I 
am  still  with  thee."  And  then  to  think  of 
this  Soul  thus  pervading  all  other  souls, — 
forming  the  universal  medium,  if  we  may  use 
a  term  so  much  profaned,  of  all  spiritual  ex- 
istences, and  yet  losing  nothing  of  that  dis- 
tinct personality  which  it  presents  to  each, 
nor  impairing,  in  the  least,  that  distinct  in- 
dividuality with  which  every  finite  spirit 
stands  before  the  Infinite.  There  is  in  such 
a  view,  all  that  the  highest  philosophy  can 
demand,  and  yet  all  that  meets  our  lowliest 
human  thought,  our  deepest  human  sym- 
pathy. There  are  indeed  some  startling 
questions  here :  How  can  God  thus  know  us 
thoroughly,  without  knowing  our  sin,  and  how 
can  he  know  our  sin,  as  it  is,  unless  he  know 
it  as  we  know  it,  that  is  with  con-scientia,  and 
how  can  he  thus  know  it,  and  yet  be  sinless? 
since  in  our  case  we  cannot  conceive  of  the 
knowledge  without  the  stain.     It  is  like  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  71 

other  great  mystery  of  the  Redemption : 
How  Christ  can  take  our  guilt  and  yet  be 
guiltless  ?  They  are  questions  that  must  be 
left  unsolved,  and  yet  the  great  truth  is  one 
we  cannot  yield  :  God  is  of  purer  eyes  than 
to  behold  evil,  yet  must  he  know  it  with  a 
deep  intelligence  transcending  that  of  any 
other  mind  in  the  universe.  We  inevitably 
fall  into  pantheism  and  a  pantheistic  imper- 
sonalit}^,  unless  we  hold  fast  to  the  truth, 
that  there  is  no  knowledge  of  the  finite,  and 
no  knowing  by  the  finite,  that  is  not  at  the 
same  time  perfectly  known,  both  as  knowledge 
and  knowing,  as  thought  and  thinking,  to  the 
Infinite  One. 

The  transcendental  objection,  we  say,  does 
itself  limit  the  divine  perfection  by  allowing 
of  no  other  aspect  than  that  of  the  eternal 
and  universal.  It  would  pretend  to  magnify 
Deity  by  absorbing  all  things  into  the  infinite. 
"But  our  God  is  the  great  God/7  from  the 
very  fact  that  he  can  thus  withdraw,  as  we 
may  say,  within  His  infinity,  while  still   re- 


72  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

maining  infinite.  There  is  a  distinction  in 
the  divine  personality  (so  revelation  teaches) 
by  which  he  can  do  this,  whether  we  can  un- 
derstand it  or  not.  He  can  remain  in  his 
high,  immovable,  prime  causation,  whilst  yet 
"  the  Divine  Word/7  which  is  God  himself, 
"runneth  very  swiftly  "  through  all  nature 
and  all  natural  worlds.  Yea,  what  seems  a 
greater  mystery,  he  can  abide  in  his  eternity, 
his  immutability,  his  sublimity,  and  yet  hum- 
ble himself,  and  take  the  form  of  man,  and 
the  thought  of  man.  He  thus  comes  down 
to  us  in  the  written  Word,  so  full  of  the  di- 
vine majesty,  the  divine  holiness,  and  }-et  so 
purely,  so  intensely  human.  He  comes  still 
nearer  to  us  in  the  incarnate  Word,  "the 
Word  that  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us  ;"  and  nearer  still  when  Christ  took  upon 
himself  our  sins,  and  carried  our  sorrows, 
making  himself  our  sacrifice,  and  thus  be- 
coming our  "  Great  High  Priest,"  who,  even 
now,  "  in  the  highest  heavens,77  can  be  touch- 
ed with  a  fellow  feeling  of  all  our  infirmities. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTUKES.  73 

Ineffable  is  the  mystery  involved  in  all  this, 
but  the  fact  can  be  clearly  stated,  and  rea- 
son must  assent  to  the  glory  of  the  truth, 
even  where  it  utterly  fails  to  comprehend. 
We  cannot  ascend  to  Heaven,  but  God  can 
come  down  to  us  ;  we  cannot  become  divine, 
but  it  is  within  his  almighty  power  to  become 
human,  and  thus  lift  us  up  to  communion 
with  himself  whilst  we  still  remain  human. 
We  can  only  take  these  thoughts  as  they  are 
revealed  to  us  in  the  Scripture.  What,  how- 
ever, we  cannot  understand  in  its  positive  na- 
ture, may  be  distinctly  and  rationally  summed 
up  in  its  negative  aspect.  True  it  is,  then, 
we  say — and  no  transcendental  thinker  can 
go  beyond  the  Bible  thought  in  this — true  it 
is,  that  "  as  the  heavens  are  high  above  the 
earth,  so  is  God's  thinking  above  our  think- 
ing," and  yet  if  he  cannot  also  think  our 
thoughts  as  we  think  them,  feel  our  feelings 
as  we  feel  them,  know  our  knowledge  as  we 
know  it,  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  dwelling  ev- 
ermore in  his  own  high,  unchangeable  intelli- 
5 


74  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

gence, — if  God  cannot  do  this,  then  are  there 
"deep  places  "in  his  universe  of  soul  un- 
known to  him,  unknown  to  him  as  they  truly 
are  ;  then  his  very  infinity  becomes  his  im- 
perfection, his  limitation,  and  there  is  really 
no  divine  knowledge  of  finite  things  accord- 
ing to  any  possible  human  thought  of  it.  We 
have  run  up,  or  run  down,  to  that  hyper- 
noetic  essence  of  the  later  Platonists  which 
makes  the  mind  of  God  to  be  as  much  above 
all  personal  knowing,  as  all  being  known. 

How  far  this  blank  nihility  of  thought  in 
respect  to  the  divine  intelligence  is  from  athe- 
ism, at  least  in  any  moral  sense,  it  would 
be  hardly  worth  our  while  to  inquire.  In- 
finity thus  regarded  is  impersonality,  and  it 
is  this  and  not  the  mere  pantheistic  idea  that 
annihilates  all  religion.  There  is,  as  we  have 
said,  a  Scripture  pantheism  ;  there  is  a  true 
sense  in  which  l<  God  is  all  and  in  all  ;"  there 
is  a  true  sense  in  which  it  is  said,  "In  him 
we  live,  and  move,  and  are  ;"  but  this  recog- 
nizes his  personality  and  our  personality  as 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  75 

all  the  more  distinct  from  the  very  fact  of 
the  inter-subsistence.  "Because  He  lives  we 
shall  live  also.7'  Those  little  words  He  and 
we  retain  here  all  their  measureless  signifi- 
cance. "As  Jehovah  liveth,  and  as  thy  soul 
liveth  :"  In  this  remarkable  Hebrew  form- 
ula, the  distinct  personality  and  yet  the  insep- 
arable interdependence  is  made  the  ground 
of  appeal  as  the  clearest  and  most  immutable 
fact  on  which  to  establish  the  immutability 
of  the  oath.  We  may  believe  that  "  God  is 
all,"  that  God  is  the  world,  or  the  soul  of  the 
world  ;  we  may  or  may  not  understand  what 
we  mean  by  this  ;  but  if  along  with  it  we 
cleave,  as  for  our  very  lives,  to  the  truth  that 
this  great  One  and  All,  as  we  may  call  him, 
and  scripturally  call  him,  does  truly  think  of 
us  as  finite  beings,  that  we  are  truly  present 
to  that  Eternal  Mind,  lying  in  it,  embraced 
by  it,  but  still  as  personalities,  the  finite  im- 
ages of  the  infinite  personality,  known  as 
such,  cared  for  as  such,  held  accountable  as 
such,  treated,  in  fact,  as  spiritual  persons  and 


76  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

not  as  more  links  in  a  physical  system,  or 
endless  chain  of  things — if  we  cleave  to  this, 
then  all  that  we  need  for  morality  and  re- 
ligion, or  any  religions  hope,  are  preserved 
to  us  in  all  their  saving  integrity.  "This 
God  is  our  God,  and  we  are  his  people,  the 
flock  of  his  pasture,  and  the  sheep  of  his 
hand.''  We  may  send  our  thoughts  to  any 
extent  in  the  one  direction,  if  we  never  lose 
that  hold  of  prayer  and  conscience  that  binds 
us  to  the  other.  We  may  indulge  in  any 
views  of  the  divine  infinity,  of  the  universal 
life,  of  the  one  universal,  all-embracing 
thought,  and  yet  feel  that  our  almost  infini- 
tesimal finity  is  as  distinctly  recognized  as 
though  it  had  been  alone  with  God,  the  only 
act  and  object  of  his  creating  power.  Such 
is  the  language  of  faith  transcending  all  cal- 
culations of  quantity  and  extent.  "  Fear 
not,  only  believe.'7  There  is  no  vastness  in 
which  we  can  be  lost.  "Fear  not,  thou 
worm  Jacob,  I  have  redeemed  thee,  saith  the 
Lord,  I  hold  thee  by  thy  hand,  I  have  called 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  77 

thee  by  thy  name  ;  thou  art  mine."  "  Why 
sayest  thou,  0  Israel,  my  way  is  hid  from  the 
Lord,  and  my  judgment  is  passed  over  from 
my  God  ?  Hast  thou  not  known  ?  Hast  thou 
not  heard  that  the  Everlasting  God,  the  God 
of  eternity,  Jehovah,  the  Creator  of  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary  ? 
There  is  no  searching  of  his  understanding. 
He  giveth  power  to  the  faint,  and  to  them 
that  have  no  might  he  increaseth  strength. 
Even  the  youths  shall  faint  and  be  weary, 
and  the  young  men  shall  utterly  fall ;  but 
they  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew 
their  strength  ;  they  shall  mount  up  with 
wings  as  eagles  ;  they  shall  run  and  not  be 
weary,  they  shall  walk  and  not  faint." 

There  may  be  also  a  scientific  theism  which 
is  no  better  than  pantheism,  and  may  be  even 
less  religious.  It  is  less  philosophical,  too,  and 
steers  clear  of  pantheism  only  at  the  expense 
of  reason  and  consistency.  It  shuts  God  out 
of  nature,  out  of  the  world,  puts  in  His  place 
the  idol  law,  all  the  while  assigning  to  deity, 


78  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

with  the  utmost  show  of  deference,  some 
extramundane,  overlooking,  sphere,  whence 
he  never  interferes  with  nature's  everlasting- 
work.  Such  theism,  we  say,  has  even  less  of 
a  religious  ground  than  the  false  pantheism. 
The  one  so  absorbs  the  world  in  God  as  to 
destroy  all  idea  of  the  divine  personality  ; 
the  other  seems  to  preserve  the  distinction 
and  the  personality,  but  renders  it  of  no 
account  by  severing  it  wholly  from  the  natu- 
ral and  the  human,  except  as  a  mere  name 
for  the  remote  unknown  originating  power. 
Both  are  children  of  the  same  parent.  Both 
are  vulgar  though  affecting  great  profundity. 
Pantheism  may  be  revived  by  modern  schools, 
as  something  wonderfully  transcending  or- 
dinary conceptions,  but  it  is  very  early  and 
very  common.  It  has  existed,  exists  now, 
where  there  is  the  least  of  culture  and  truly 
educated  thought.  The  Buddhist  priests  of 
Thibet  or  Siam  are  far  beyond,  in  this  respect, 
the  philosophers  of  Boston  or  of  Westminster. 
The  untaught  plodder  in  the  secluded  me- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  79 

chanic's  shop  has  thought  out  all  this  philoso- 
phy for  himself,  and  been  surprised  to  find 
that  it  was  so  well  known  before.  So  also 
naturalism  has  flourished,  and  flourishes  still, 
with  the  crudest  science.  Lucretius  and  the 
Epicureans  could  talk  of  law — ci{>XaL,  prill* 
cipia,  principles,  they  called  it — as  profoundly 
as  any  modern  savan.  The  lecturers  on 
phrenology  indulge  in  the  same  lingo  with  as 
much  confidence  as  the  most  scientific  astron- 
omer or  geologist.  And  they  have  the  same 
right  to  do  so.  Both  classes  of  ideas,  whether 
they  assume  the  pantheistic  or  the  naturalistic 
form,  are  products  of  the  common  thinking 
as  affected  by  the  common  depravity.  Both 
have  something  of  reason  in  their  paternit}' 
but  their  common  mother  is  an  evil  conscience. 
They  are  born  of  the  moral  dislike,  the  moral 
dread  of  the  idea  of  a  personal  deity.  They 
are  both  but  the  unrest  of  souls  that  in  their 
flight  from  this  personal  God  would  find  some 
halting  short  of  that  lowest  abyss  of  a  dark, 
idealess,  wholly  unintellectual  atheism. 


j 


80  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

On  either  view,  this  idea  of  the  divine  per- 
sonality is  lost.  That  which  cannot  recognize 
the  finite,  whether  in  itself,  or  out  of  itself, 
or  below  itself,  can  have  itself  no  self-hood  ; 
since  it  can  have  nothing  of  which  it  can 
think  (aside  from  the  total  idea)  much  less 
any  thing  to  which  it  can  speak,  or  by  which 
it  can  properly  be  invoked.  Personality  im- 
plies relation,  mutuality,  plurality,  or  duality 
at  least.  As  predicated  of  deity  it  involves 
either  the  eternity  of  the  wTorld,  as  some  of 
the  ancient  minds  held  on  this  very  ground, 
or  else  eternal  personal  distinctions  in  the 
divine  being,  the  idea  to  which  other  ancient 
minds  resorted  to  solve  the  awful  difficulty. 
Deity  could  not  be  thought  except  as  having 
itself  its  eternal  thought,  its  eternal  love;  and 
hence  that  very  old  idea  of  the  divine  Pater- 
nity, with  its  Novo,  and  Wv%i],  which  Pythag- 
oras and  Plato  are  said  to  have  brought  from 
the  East.  Or  did  it  not  rather  come  from 
revelation,  from  the  going  forth  in  the  world 
of  that  early  language  we  find  in  the  very 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  81 

beginning  of  Genesis,  and  which  the  nco- 
logical  interpretation  can  never  satisfy, — the 
Word  and  the  Spirit  in  creation,  and  that 
mysterious  allocution  at  the  birth  of  hu- 
manity, "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image."  It 
is,  however,  enough  for  our  present  argument 
to  hold  the  thought  in  reference  to  created 
personalities.  Whatever  we  may  think,  or 
fail  to  think  of  the  divine  pre-existence,  still, 
as  regards  any  personal  conceptions  we  can 
form  of  deity,  the  ego  is  inseparable  from  the 
tu  and  the  ilk.  In  other  wTords,  there  can  be 
no  first  person  in  him  to  whom  there  is  no 
second,  and  of  whom,  and  by  whom,  there  is 
no  third.  When,  in  such  a  statement,  we  are 
compelled  to  use  the  words  in  him,  we  have 
already  the  language  of  personality,  thereby 
implying  the  inherent  logical  contradiction  in 
the  contrary  supposition,  or  its  utter  repug- 
nance to  the  God -given  laws  of  human 
thought.  We  cannot  think  at  all,  much  less 
speak,  of  God  ;  he  cannot  use  the  ego  or 
speak  to  us  in  any  way,  or  tell  us  of  himself. 


82  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Any  language  implying  such  a  self-hood 
becomes  as  much  anthropopathic  as  any  as- 
criptions to  deity  of  human  affections,  or 
human  bodily  actions,  or  bodily  organs. 
Though  not  in  the  same  degree,  perhaps,  yet 
as  truly  and  as  essentially  does  it  present  the 
finite,  and  even  the  human  aspect.  uThou 
art  from  everlasting  unto  everlasting" — uHe 
dwelleth  in  light  unapproachable  and  full  of 
glory'7 — "I  am  the  first  and  the  last,  saith 
the  Lord,  who  is,  and  was,  and  is  to  come'' 
— "  Before  the  day  was,  /  am  He11 — "And 
now,  Father,  glorify  thou  me  with  the  glory 
that  /  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was." 
These  certainly  are  transcending  revelations  ; 
if  human  speech  can  convey  any  thought  of 
God,  it  is  here  carried  to  its  utmost  height  of 
grandeur,  as  well  as  lucidity  ;  and  yet  all  this 
glorious  language  is  liable  to  the  same  objec- 
tion of  the  man  who  denies  the  possibility  of 
a  finite  written  or  spoken  revelation.  It  is 
anthropopathic  ;  it  implies  personality,  and 
personal  relations.     It  is  the  finite  self-hood 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  83 

invoking  the  Infinite  ;  it  is  one  eternal  per- 
sonality addressing  another  ;  it  is  the  In- 
finite speaking  of  himself,  rm*  n»»  mna.  ego 
sum  qui  sum,  I  am  that  I  am, — this  sublimest 
declaration  of  human  speech  falls  in  the  same 
category  with  what  might  seem  the  most 
extravagant  figures  of  the  Hebrew  prophets. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

If  Revelation  is  Human,  it  must  be  Most  Human  —  The  Scrip- 
tures Written  in  the  Heart  of  the  Church  —  In  the  History  of 
the  World — The  Scriptures  have  a  Typical  Significance  — 
Typical  Men,  Viri  Porteuclentes  —  Typical  Facts  —  The  Formula 

—  "Thus  saith  the  Lord"— Truly  the  Lord's  Words  —  Yet  Psy- 
chologically the  Prophet's  Words  —  In  respect  to  Deity,  One 
Finite  Mode  is  as  outward  as  another  —  Nature  a  General 
Epistle  —  Has  no  Intelligence  for  us,  as  Individuals,  or  a  Race 

—  Addressed  to  the  Impersonal  Scientific  Reason  —  The  Scrip- 
tures a  Special  Epistle,  having  our  name,  and  Address  to  Hu- 
manity —  The  Media  Specially  Chosen  —  Excellency  of  the  Scrip- 
ture Language  —  Should  be  Used  as  much  as  Possible  in 
Devotion — "Let  us  take  with  us  Words  and  return  unto  the 
Lord." 


Let  us  see  clearly  where  we  are.  It  is  for 
this  purpose  we  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  this 
objection  of  anthropopathism.  Carry  it  out, 
and  God  could  not  make  a  revelation  in  lan- 
guage, in  any  language,  in  any  actions, 
signals,  symbols,  in  any  outward  representa- 
tions, in  any  inward   affections  of  the   soul, 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  85 

in  any  finite  way,  in  short,  that  is  either 
actually  or  conceivably  separated  from  the 
one  total  action,  the  one  indivisible  and  ever- 
lasting movement  of  the  universe.  If,  how- 
ever, the  Infinite  can  make  a  revelation  to 
the  finite,  and  through  the  finite,  then  do 
these  minor  difficulties  all  vanish.  If  God 
can  come  down  to  us  at  all,  then,  with  all 
reverence  be  it  said,  can  we  see  a  reason  why, 
since  all  human  language  is  radically  under- 
laid, and  must  be  underlaid,  by  images  of 
sense,  he  should  adopt,  at  once,  that  style  of 
speech  which  is  the  most  outward,  the  most 
phenomenal,  and,  therefore,  the  most  uni- 
versal. It  is  a  typifying  process.  The 
media  are  the  souls,  the  emotions,  the 
thoughts,  the  imaginations  of  inspired  men, 
but  so  chosen,  so  placed  in  form,  and  so 
worked,  that  the  last  outward  impression 
should  present  that  deep,  sharp,  well-defined 
letter,  that  may  be  clearly  seen  and  read 
of  all  men.  Revelation  is  the  chapter  of  the 
supernatural,  as  given  to  us  through  inspired 


86  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

human  agents.  Along  with  this  history  of 
the  supernatural,  and  through  it,  as  a 
medium,  it  is  also  the  vision  of  the  divine 
ideas  as  they  appear  in  human  forms ;  and 
thus  has  it  been  engraven,  stereotyped,  we 
might  say,  indelible  and  imperishable,  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  world,  even  as  God 
commanded  the  prophet — "  Write  the  vision, 
and  cut  it  deep  on  tablets,  that  he  may  run 
who  readeth  it." 

But  the  Bible  is  not  mere  ink  and  parch- 
ment. It  has  been  written  on  the  heart  of 
the  Church,  and  thus  has  been,  from  age  to 
age,  the  living  as  well  as  the  uttered  word. 
It  has  been  deeply  printed  in  the  secular 
annals  of  the  world  ;  other  histories  being, 
in  this  respect,  but  its  marginal  scholia.  It 
has  carried  with  it,  too,  a  typical  significance, 
a  sense,  not  new,  but  ever  enlarging,  that 
has  made  it,  at  every  period,  the  law  of  the 
world's  cycles,  the  only  light  that  gives  any 
meaning  to  its  past,  or  can  be  trusted  for 
any  interpretation  of  its  future.     The  events 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  87 

of  Scripture  are  themselves  words  having  a 
significance  to  be  interpreted.  They  are  rep- 
resentative events.  The  men  of  Scripture 
are  representative  men.  They  are  ^?i^  tosii, 
as  was  said  of  Joshua  the  High  Priest,  "  men 
of  type,"  or  typical  men,  viri  portendentes, 
avdyeg  TeQarooxdnbi,  —  ovfipofaxoi.  They 
are  homines  in  signum  positi  futurorum,  as 
Hieronymus  following  his  Jewish  teacher  ad- 
mirably interprets  Zach.  3:8.  Thus  regarded, 
the  Scriptural  histories  are,  at  the  same  time, 
fact  and  figure.  In  respect  both  to  men  and 
events,  they  are  typical  histories — res  futu- 
ras  res  adumbrantes.  They  are  the  fore- 
cast shadows  of  other  cycles  in  the  life  of 
the  world  and  the  Church.  Israel  is  the 
" chosen  servant"  to  be  "light  to  the  Gentiles, 
and  God's  salvation,  even  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth."  And  thus  the  whole  revelation,  Jew- 
ish and  Christian,  is  a  living  word,  uttered 
continually  in  the  great  historical  movement, 
and  so  connected  with  it,  that  take  away 
this   chapter    of  the    supernatural    and    the 


88  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

supernatural  people,  and  the  key  to  all  his- 
tory is  lost. 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord."  They  are  truly 
the  Lord's  words.  It  is  the  veritable  language 
of  the  Infinite  speaking  through  media  to  the 
finite  mind,  even  as  one  unseen  human  soul 
speaks  to  another  human  soul,  through  the 
outward  undulations  of  the  air.  And  yet  we 
do  not  mar  the  thought  of  the  infinite  by 
any  such  conception.  All  things,  in  their 
imageless  ideas,  lie  in  that  ineffable  mind. 
But  when  God  puts  them  forth  in  the  forms 
of  time  and  space,  that  is,  actually  thinks 
them  and  utters  them,  then  one  mode  is  as 
outward, — that  is,  to  Deity,  as  finite,  as  much 
necessitated  to  some  form  of  sense,  or  sense 
conception,  or  sense  imagery,  as  another. 
Thus  nature,  too,  as  well  as  the  Bible  and 
history,  is  a  language,  though  having  a  gene- 
ral message.  It  is  a  species  of  telegraphic, 
or  far  writing,  conveying  intelligence,  but 
not  to  the  individual  soul  as  such,  nor  for  the 
individual  soul.     It  brings  no  intimation  that 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  89 

such  soul  is  present  to  the  divine  thinking,  or 
has  any  special  relation  to  the  Infinite,  or  is 
at  all  known  to  Him  except  as  inclivisibly 
comprehended  in  the  one  total  indivisible 
thought.  The  signals  of  nature  are  addressed 
to  the  impersonal  scientific  reason.  Yet  even 
thus  viewed  as  a  general  language  it  has  its 
difficulties  of  expression  which  no  natural 
theology  can  decypher  ;  it  has  archaisms,  or 
obsolete  forms,  of  which  we  can  give  no 
reason  in  any  present  order  of  things  ;  it  has 
apparent  solecisms  that  we  cannot  reduce  to 
syntax  by  any  exegetical  strain  we  may  put 
upon  them  ;  they  look  harshly,  they  sound 
barbarously,  in  spite  of  all  our  attempts  to 
bring  them  into  harmony  with  other  moral, 
or  even  physical  utterances.  Our  a  priori 
philosophy  would  say  they  could  not  be 
divine, — that  is,  could  not  exist  in  the  works 
of  a  perfectly  wise  and  good  and  powerful 
being,  if  stubborn  facts  did  not  furnish  the 
constant  refutation.  Nature  is  a  general 
epistle,  but  the  written  revelation  is  purely 


90  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

human  ;  it  is  addressed  to  our  race,  and  to 
each  individual  soul  that  reads  or  hears  it. 
It  has  our  name  in  the  beginning  and  through- 
out. It  is  directed  to  humanity,  and  is, 
therefore,  most  human  in  its  form.  It  is 
God's  chosen  language  to  us, — the  words  and 
images  specially  selected  and  specially  ar- 
ranged with  a  reference  to  the  wants  of  our 
human  race  in  their  peculiar  moral  history. 
The  media  employed  are  all  determined  with 
respect  to  this.  The  age,  the  nation,  the 
man,  the  mind,  are  all  chosen  to  bring  it 
out,  and  give  it  this  utmost  power  of  its  rep- 
resentative fulness.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord," — 
it  is  not  a  mere  prophetic  formula,  expres- 
sive of  a  general  thought  or  feeling,  and 
leaving  the  filling  up  wholly  to  the  human 
imagination  of  the  Seer.  We  are  not  to 
believe  this  any  more  than  the  other  or  me- 
chanical theory,  which  would  represent  the 
words  as  outwardly  spoken  to  the  Prophet's 
ear,  or  telegraphically  signalled  to  his  imag- 
ing sensorium.      They  are,  psychologically, 


IN    THE    SCKIPTURES.  91 

the  Prophet's  words,  the  Prophet's  images, 
yet  still  none  the  less  specially  designed 
through  the  linked  media  of  revelation,  and 
thus  divinely  enunciated,  as  the  very  best 
possible  words,  the  best  possible  imagery, 
through  which  such  an  approximate  com- 
munication of  the  ineffable  could  be  made  to 
human  minds.  It  is  God's  choice  or  chosen 
language  to  us  ;  and  it  should  be,  therefore, 
of  all  others,  that  which  we  should  employ 
when  "  we  take  with  us  words  and  return  unto 
the  Lord."  As  far  as  possible,  our  prayers, 
our  praises,  our  confessions,  our  thanksgiv- 
ings, all  our  devotional  intercourse  with  Deity 
should  be  in  the  very  language  of  Scripture, 
— in  that  sacred  speech  which  He  has  pre- 
pared and  given  to  us,  even  as  he  originally 
taught  to  Adam  the  language  of  the  common 
life  and  common  wants.  So  shall  we  most 
worthily  render  ' '  unto  God  the  fruit  of  our 
lips;"  so  "  shall  the  wTords  of  our  mouth  and 
the  meditations  of  our  hearts  be  acceptable 
unto  him  who  is  our  strength  and  our  Re- 


92  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

deemer."  The  hypocrite  may  pervert  this 
Bible  language,  the  fanatic  may  make  it 
odious,  worldly  satirists  may  caricature  it, 
clerical  wits  like  Sidney  Smith  may  ridicule 
it  as  puritanical  cant ;  yet  still  to  Christians 
must  it  continue  to  be  the  sacred  dialect, 
God's  chosen  speech  for  his  chosen  people. 
They  will  not  profane  it  by  thoughtless 
use  or  secular  parodies,  yet  still  will  they 
cling  to  it  as  the  cherished  vernacular  of 
their  new  citizenship.  In  its  wondrous 
depth,  its  celestial  clearness,  its  critical 
edge,(2)  its  "  soul  and  spirit  dividing  energy,'' 
its  thought-piercing,  heart-revealing  power, 
above  all,  in  its  awing  impress  of  super- 
human authority  whilst  yet  speaking  in  such 
intensely  human  tones,  they  find  it  just  the 
medium  their  souls  want,  and  God  has  pro- 
vided, for  religious  thinking  as  well  as  re- 
ligious utterance, — the  surest  source,  in  short, 
of  right  feeling,  right  conception,  and  right 
speaking  in  all  that  relates  to  the  spiritual 
and  the  divine. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

la  the  Bible  Language  Obsolete?  —  "Christ  apprehending 
us  "  —  God  Laying  hold  of  us  in  his  Word  —  Accommodations  — 
Apologies  for  the  Bible  Language  —  Have  We  advanced  beyond 
it  ?  —  Holiness  the  true  test  of  Progress  in  the  Divine  Ideas  — 
A  Progress  in  Eevelation,  but  not  for  the  Reason  usually 
given  —  The  Bible  Language  nearest  to  the  Ineffable  —  The  Phil- 
osophic style  might  have  been  employed — The  Materials  for  it 
were  very  anciently  in  the  World  —  Paul  could  have  talked  Pla- 
tonically  —  The  Old  Testament  Language  produced  a  higher 
order  of  thought  than  that  of  any  Eastern  or  Western  Philoso- 
phy —  Difference  between  the  Jewish  Outward  and  the  Heathen 
Outward  —  Are  the  Modern  TransceDdentalists  remarkably  Holy 
Men?  —  Our  Literary  World — Our  Political  Men— Are  they 
really  more  spiritual  than  Cicero  or  Tacitus  ?  —  Universality  of 
the  Scriptures. 

God  be  thanked  for  the  anthropopathism 
of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  but  another  name 
for  human  sympathy.  It  is  but  another  form 
of  that  same  love  which  moved  Christ  to 
"  take  upon  himself  our  nature,"  (if  we  adopt 
the  old  Patristic  rendering  of  Heb.  2  :  10)  or 


94  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

11  to  lay  hold  of  us,"  to  apprehend  us,  (accord- 
ing to  the  more  modern  exegesis,)  when  we 
were  sinking,  like  Peter,  in  the  overwhelm- 
ing waters.  He  thus  lays  hold  of  us  in  his 
word  that  we  may  think  of  him  as  he  thinks 
of  us,  that  we  may  know  him  even  as  he 
knows  us,  "  that  we  may  apprehend  that  in 
which,  or  through  which,  we  are  apprehended 
of  Christ  Jesus."  (s)  We  may  affect  to  be 
above  this  condescension,  to  have  grown  out 
of  it  in  the  advance  of  the  world,  to  have 
reached,  in  short,  some  spiritual  eminence, 
where,  for  ourselves  at  least,  we  may  dispense 
with  it,  and  adopt  a  more  philosophical  style 
of  thought  and  speech.  Hence  so  much  of 
what  may  be  called  apology  for  the  Bible, — 
apologies  strictly  in  the  degenerate  sense  of 
the  word, — excuses  for  the  Bible,  in  fact,  as 
being  adapted  in  its  dress  and  diction  to  a 
past  age,  though  still  possessing  thought  that 
may  be  better  recast  or  recoined  in  the 
modern  "  Philosophies  of  Religion,"  or  of 
Christianity,   as    they   are    styled.     But  this 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  95 

idea  of  obsoletism,  though  beginning  to  mani- 
fest itself  in  the  more  evangelical  interpreta- 
tion, as  it  assumes  to  be,  is  as  false  as  it  is 
irreverent.  We  would  say  also,  as  unphilo- 
sophical,  were  it  not  too  much  in  the  style  of 
the  very  cant  we  are  condemning.  What  is 
there  in  the  spiritual  condition  of  man  in  this 
nineteenth  century  of  human  darkness  and 
depravity  ?  What  is  there  in  any  purer  holi- 
ness, or  any  higher  moral  elevation  we  may 
fancy  ours, — how  much  nearer,  in  this  re- 
spect, do  we  stand  to  the  ineffable  truth,  that 
we  should  claim  to  be  addressed  in  a  different 
style  from  that  which  was  adapted  to  Patri- 
archs and  Apostles,  as  though,  through  our 
advance  in  other  knowledge,  we  had  really 
reached  a  more  spiritual  or  more  holy  state. 
For  this,  and  not  mere  intellectuality,  must 
be  the  true  test.  It  is  holiness,  rather  than 
knowledge,  that  makes  us  like  God.  It  is 
love,  humility,  reverence,  purity  of  heart 
that  brings  an  individual  or  an  age  nearer  to 
that  which  is  most  divine,  most  central,  in  the 


96  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

divine  thought.  Here  is  the  real  progress 
through  which  we  make  a  real  approach  unto 
Deity  ;  this  is  the  only  progress  that  makes 
us  better  able  to  understand  God  when  he 
speaks  to  us,  whether  it  be  in  nature,  in  his- 
tory, or  in  the  Word.  "  The  pure  in  heart 
shall  see  God."  "Thou  through  thy  com- 
mandments hast  made  us  wiser  than  our  ene- 
mies. I  have  more  understanding  than  all 
my  teachers,  for  thy  testimonies  are  my  medi- 
tation. I  understand  more  than  the  ancients 
because  I  keep  thy  precepts." 

Are  we  more  holy,  more  loving,  more  un- 
selfish, more  obedient,  more  believing,  than 
men  of  the  olden  time, — then,  and  just  in  that 
proportion  of  our  higher  holiness,  and  our 
more  loving  obedience,  and  our  purer  self- 
renouncing  faith,  may  we  hope  that  we  are 
wiser  in  the  divine  ideas.  Now  who  shall 
abide  this  test  ?  Will  it  be  the  men  who 
have  most  to  say  in  their  writings,  and  in 
their  lectures,  of  the  obsoleteness  of  the 
Scriptures?     Are  they  the  heavenly  minded 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  97 

ones  ?  Or  will  it  be  their  admiring  followers 
who  regard  them  as  the  infallible  oracles  of 
the  age  ?  Will  it  be  our  literary  classes 
generally  who  talk  so  much  of  refinement 
and  culture  ?  Have  they  this  higher  spirit- 
uality, this  purity  of  soul  that  renders  men 
Godlike  and  more  capable  of  understanding 
GJ-od  ?  To  say  nothing  now  of  the  vulgar  or 
"  dogmatic  piety  "  as  they  would  style  it,  are 
they  really  more  distinguished  than  other 
men,  or  the  men  of  other  ages,  for  their  un- 
earthliness,  their  contemplation  of  the  higher 
life,  or  that  divine  communion  which  even 
reason  would  tell  us,  must  be  the  truest 
source  of  the  truest  divine  knowledge  ?  Are 
they,  in  all  these  respects,  wiser,  as  they  are 
more  hory,  than  "  the  ancients  V]  Until  con- 
vinced of  this,  we  must  continue  to  believe 
that  Moses,  and  David,  and  Isaiah,  f  stood 
nearer  the  divine  thoughts  than  Strauss  or 
Hegel, — that  Paul  and  John  were  certainly  as 
capable,  to  say  the  least,  of  receiving  spirit- 
ual ideas,  and  a  true  divine  knowledge  as  any 
5 


98  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

of  the  men  who  are  now  known  as  the  tran- 
scendental thinkers  and  lecturers  of  the 
times. 

There  is  doubtless  a  progress  in  revelation  ; 
for  the  fact  is  announced  in  revelation  itself. 
"God,  who  in  times  past  spake  unto  our 
fathers  by  the  Prophets,  hath  in  these  last 
days  spoken  unto  us  by  His  Son."  But  the 
reason  of  this  must  be  sought  elsewhere,  if 
sought  at  all,  than  in  any  spiritual  progress  of 
man  that  may  be  supposed  to  keep  in  advance 
of  it,  or  to  be  independent  of  it,  or  to  have  pre- 
pared men  for  it.  Higher  truths  were  re- 
vealed through  Paul  than  were  given  to 
Joshua  or  to  Samuel ;  but  no  reason  can  be 
assigned — none  derived  from  history  or  any 
known  condition  of  man — why  the  earth- 
wearied,  heaven-seeking  Patriarchs,  why  the 
thoughtful  Arabian  of  the  days  of  Job,  why 
the  Schools  of  the  Prophets  in  the  times  of 
the  seraphic  Isaiah,  might  not  have  received 
into  their  souls  the  same  spiritual  truths  that 
were  afterwards  received  by  the  dark,  disso- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES 


jute,  and  brutalized  inhabitants  of  Asia 
Minor.  No  reason  can  be  given  why  the 
uiller  revelation  of  God  might  not  have  been 
understood  by  these  earlier  men,  these  lofty, 
primitive  minds,  as  well  as  it  was  afterwards 
received  and  understood  by  the  savage  Nu- 
midian,  or  the  still  fiercer  Goth,  or  as  it  is 
now  received  by  the  worldly,  the  sensual,  the 
ignorant,  the  unspiritual,  of  this  nineteenth 
century.  No  reasons,  we  say,  for  this  evi- 
dently designed  progress  in  revelation,  can  be 
derived  from  history  simply,  or  from  any 
earlier  or  later  culture  of  man  as  made  known 
in  history.  They  must  be  sought  in  revela- 
tion itself,  or  foregone  as  among  the  inscru- 
table mysteries  of  the  divine  government. 

It  is  enough  for  us  that  revelation  has  not 
been  dependent  on  human  progress  outside 
of  it,  and,  therefore,  its  language  cannot  be 
rendered  obsolete  by  it.  The  thought  holds 
true,  even  if  we  take  into  the  account  the 
progress,  or  true  spiritual  culture,  made 
through  revelation  itself.     Those  who  have 


100  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

shared  most  largely  in  this  spiritual  culture, 
who  have  drank  deepest  at  the  fountain  of 
Scriptural  truth,  are  the  last  to  wish  any 
change,  or  to  feel  the  need  of  any  change  in 
the  divine  communications.  They  are  thank- 
ful for  every  type,  for  every  metaphor,  for 
every  impassioned  appeal,  for  every  instance 
of  the  divine  condescension  in  coming  down 
to  us,  taking  the  scale  of  our  thoughts,  and 
speaking  to  us  in  our  own  human  emotions, 
our  own  human  conceptions,  as  well  as  in  our 
own  human  words.  They  know  as  well  as 
others, — they  know  better  than  others,  that 
"  God's  thoughts  are  above  our  thoughts," 
and  his  thinking  above  our  thinking,  "even 
as  the  Heavens  are  high  above  the  earth," 
but  they  also  believe  that  in  this  Bible  lan- 
guage there  is  the  nearest  earthly  approxi- 
mation to  the  ineffable  truth,  that  the  eye 
most  intently  fixed  upon  it — though  at  a  vast 
distance,  it  may  be — is  yet  in  the  true  direc- 
tion of  the  heavenly  vision,  and  that  the 
heart  that  loves  it  most  is  most  directly,  and 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  101 

most  speedily,  growing  up  into  the  fulness 
and  reality  of  the  heavenly  life.  Any  sub- 
stitution of  a  more  philosophical  or  scientific 
dialect  would  be,  thus  far,  a  divergency  from 
the  true  celestial  line,  from  the  straight 
course  of  the  upward  calling.  It  would  fall 
short  in  distance  as  much  as  the  other, — for 
in  this  respect  all  human  intellects  must  be 
on  a  par — whilst,  in  regard  to  the  first  and 
far  more  essential  idea,  it  would  be  a  total 
failure,  even  inasmuch  as  an  error  in  direc- 
tion involves  every  other  error.  It  would 
be,  moreover,  essentially  false  in  proportion 
as  it  was  destitute  of  that  emotional  power 
which  makes  the  Scriptures  the  Living  Word, 
the  truth  alive  and  vitalizing  in  the  soul.  If 
we  may  venture  to  carry  the  thoughts  on- 
ward to  a  period  in  eternity  when  the  in- 
effable truth  contained  in  Christianity  shall 
come  directly  before  the  spiritual  vision,  and 
be  "  seen  face  to  face,'7  then  may  it  be  found 
that  they  in  this  life  were  looking  most 
directly  in  this  line    of  absolute   verity  who 


102  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

kept  themselves  most  docilely  and  submis- 
sively to  the  gracious  "accommodations"  of 
the  Scriptures,  not  seeking  to  be  above 
them,  or  to  dispense  with  them,  on  any  view, 
however  outwardly  respectful,  of  their  being 
wholly  or  partially  designed  for  a  former 
more  worldly  or  less  spiritual  age. 

It  is  the  Bible  language  in  which  the  relig- 
ious emotion  ordinarily  finds  its  most  fitting 
vent.  There  are,  it  is  true,  ecstatic  condi- 
tions, such  as  appeared  in  the  miraculous 
powers  of  the  early  Church,  in  which  the 
soul  breaks  out  in  an  unknown  tongue  that 
has  no  interpretation  in  any  earthly  thoughts 
and  images  •  and  yet  we  have  intimations 
that  even  in  the  higher  world,  the  dialect  of 
the  early  religious  life  is  not  wholly  lost. 
John,  indeed,  saw  the  heavenly  ideas  through 
earthly  eyes;  the  mysterious  "  living  crea- 
tures "  around  the  throne,  the  golden  city, 
and  the  waters  of  life,  may  represent  what 
is  ineffable  to  us  in  our  present  thinking,  yet 
still  there  are  figures  of  the  Sacred  Writings, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  103 

if  we  may  call  them  figures,  that  eveu  eter- 
nity will  never  efface  from  the  soul's  long 
memory.  The  Cross,  the  Crown,  "  the 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,'7 
— these  will  be  still  the  representatives  of 
imperishable  ideas.  They  will  remain,  still  a 
language,  in  eternity  as  in  time, — still  a  lan- 
guage, even  when  science  shall  be  seen  to 
have  been  only  a  reflection  from  a  darkened 
mirror,  and  philosophy  a  childish  talking,  a 
childish  thinking,  long  since  put  away  among 
far  off  earthly  things. 

The  philosophical  style  of  speech  could 
have  been  employed  in  the  Scriptures,  had 
their  divine  author  regarded  it  as  the  best 
mode  through  which  divine  ideas  could  be 
conveyed  to  men.  It  not  only  existed  in  the 
world  at  a  time  when  much  of  the  older 
Scripture  was  written,  but  had  reached  a 
high  degree  of  culture.  The  old  Egyptian 
Mystics,  the  Eastern  Pantheists,  the  early 
Ionian  and  Eleatic  schools  of  the  West, 
Xenophanes     and    Heraclitus     the    ancient 


101  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Hegel  and  Spinoza,  were  talking  of  aqxai 
and  avzia,  of  principles  and  causations,  of  the 
11  universal  reason,"  the  ov%a  and  yiyvouuva, 
the  "  being  and  the  becoming,7'  the  objective 
and  the  subjective,  the  me  and  the  not  me, 
the  One  in  all  and  the  all  in  One,  the  ever- 
lasting flux  and  the  eternal  immobility, — all 
this  not  far  from  the  time  when  Isaiah  was 
setting  forth  in  his  burning  figures  the  in- 
effable majesty  of  the  Living  God,  before 
whom  "  the  Seraphim  veiled  their  faces  with 
their  wings,  crying  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  of 
Hosts,  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory." 
The  language  of  the  Schools  had  been 
brought  to  its  highest  perfection  (a  perfec- 
tion we  think  not  even  now  surpassed)  when 
Paul  preached  those  stumbling-blocks  to  the 
world's  religion  and  the  world's  philosophy, — 
the  doctrines  of  the  Cross  and  of  the  Resur- 
rection. Is  it  said,  then,  that  these  were  only 
apparent  teachings  of  the  Apostle,  that  they 
were  defective  forms  of  truth,  mere  accom- 
modations in  fact,  because  he  had  no  higher 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  105 

language  for  the  spiritual  life  and  the  divine 
favor  than  these  gross  Jewish  anthropop- 
athisms, — the  only  answer  needed  is  a  distinct 
denial  both  of  the  fact  and  the  argument. 
Paul  could  have  used  the  dialect  of  the 
wranglers  in  the  famous  gymnasia  of  Tarsus, 
he  could  have  talked  as  spiritually  as  the 
Platonists,or  as  logically  as  the  Aristotelians, 
or  as  mystically  as  the  school  of  Philo,  had 
he  seen  fit  to  do  so  ;  and  in  saying  this,  we 
need  not  make  for  him,  as  has  sometimes 
been  done,  any  extravagant  claims  in  respect 
to  learning  ;  for  the  age  was  swarming  with 
these  disputants,  and  their  public  discussions 
and  lectures,  if  not  their  books,  were  among 
the  common  phenomena  of  the  times.  He 
could  easily  have  used  their  speech,  and  he 
would  have  been  understood  too,  as  well  as 
philosophic  language,  so  called,  is  understood 
by  the  masses  at  the  present  day  ;  for  all 
through  the  chief  towns  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, at  least  where  the  Greek  language  was 
spoken,  a  smattering  of  this  kind  of  talk  had 
5* 


106  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

got  down  into  the  common  mind,  even  as  it 
has  now  filtered  through  the  modern  reading 
and  lecture  hearing  world.  The  scoffer 
Lucian  affords  sufficient  evidence,  if  we  had 
no  other,  that  Paul,  had  he  chosen  to  talk 
philosophically,  would  have  been  as  well  un- 
derstood at  Athens,  or  Corinth,  as  Mr. 
Parker  or  any  of  his  associates  in  Boston  or 
New  York. 

There  is  an  egregious  fallacy  here,  whether 
we  think  of  the  later  or  the  more  ancient 
revelation.  A  fact  may  be  appealed  to  as  a 
conclusive  refutation  of  all  abstract  reasoning 
on  the  subject ;  and  this  is,  that  the  anthro- 
popathism  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  its 
typical  representations,  did  actually  produce 
a  higher  order  of  thinking  than  the  abstract 
style  of  any  Eastern  or  Western  philosophy. 
The  ancient  Jew, with  his  tabernacle  made  in 
all  respects  "after  the  pattern  shown  to 
Moses  on  the  Mount,7' the  cosmical  (4)  sanc- 
tuary or  world  temple  typical  of  things  in  the 
Heavens,"*  with  its  lights  and  incense,  the 

*  Heb.  9:  11. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  107 

altar  with  its  sacrifice,  that  sacrifice  of  which 
the  heathen  world  had  lost  the  meaning  and 
for  which  its  philosophy  had  no  idea,  the  Ark 
of  the  Covenant,  the  Mercy  Seat,  the  Cheru- 
bim with  their  overshadowing  wings  looking 
down  upon  its  mystery,  the  Shekinah,  the  un- 
approachable Holy  of  Holies, — the  ancient 
Jew,  we  say,  through  the  ideas  thus  repre- 
sented, knew  more  of  God,  of  his  adorable 
unity,  his  awful  holiness,  his  intense  hatred 
of  sin  and  impurity,  than  was  ever  dreamed 
of  in  the  "  numerical  ratios  "  of  Pythagoras, 
or  the  "eternal  ideas"  of  Plato  ;  he  had  a 
more  living  thought  of  God's  near  person- 
ality, and,  at  the  same  time,  his  far-off  incon- 
ceivable immensity,  of  his  burning  presence 
as  their  own  patrial  Deit}',  and,  at  the  same 
time,  his  high  unrepresentable  glory  tran- 
scending all  similitude,  *  than  ever  came 
from  all  the  speculations  of  the  Academy  or 
the  Porch. 

Some  woukl   compare  these  Jewish  sym- 

*  Deut.  4  :  15, 


108  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

bols  with  the  outward  in  the  heathen 
worship, — but  the  difference  is  immense  ;  it 
is  radical,  and  exclusive  of  all  comparison. 
They  were  symbols  of  holiness,  the  others  of 
impurity  ;  they  were  symbols  of  the  ineffable, 
the  others  of  all  that  was  most  sensual  in 
an  outward  and  sensual  mythology  ;  they 
were  symbols  of  the  heavenly,  as  transcend- 
ing nature,  the  others  had  almost  wholly  a 
physical  idea.  The  Jewish  rites  had  a  spirit- 
ual power,  although  maintaining  a  holy  re- 
serve as  to  a  spiritual  world  ;  the  other  had 
its  fantastic  supernatural,  its  wild  demon- 
ology,  and  yet  the  whole  tendency  was  to  the 
earthly,  the  human,  the  lower  than  the 
human  ;  for  the  prime  consistency  of  these 
chaotic  myths,  and  of  this  chaotic  worship, 
was  only  found  in  making  gods  and  dai- 
mones,  as  well  as  men  and  animals,  all  the 
children  of  one  common  mother  nature. 
Hence  there  was  really  so  much  less  religion 
among  the  heathen,  even  where  they  seemed 
to  be  more  religious  than  the  Jews.     The 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  109 

former  had  no  check  upon  their  depraved 
imaginations  ;  the  chosen  people  had  a  stern 
ritual  out  of  which  the  fancy  was  forbidden 
to  wander.  Hence,  too,  what  has  caused 
some  to  wonder,  that  the  Greeks  should  have 
had  what  seemed  a  larger  and  more  definite 
creed  respecting  Hades,  and  souls  in  Hades, 
than  the  Children  of  the  Promise  ;  and  yet, 
to  the  thinking  mind,  how  much  more  of 
moral  impressiveness  in  the  few  hints  of  the 
Old  Testament  on  this  dread  subject,  its 
cautious  speaking,  its  awful  reserve,  we  may 
say,  than  in  all  the  Greek  fancies  of  Tartarus 
and  Elysium.  The  future  life  was  not  con- 
cealed ;  there  was  a  hope  if  not  a  distinct  idea, 
a  faith,  purer  perhaps  from  its  very  indefi- 
niteness,  that  in  some  way,  the  dead,  the 
righteous  dead,  at  least,  did  still  "live  unto 
God,'7  but  the  fulness  and  clearness  of  this 
revelation  was  reserved  for  the  Conqueror  of 
Hades.  Such  a  doctrine  was  too  precious  to 
be  given  fully  to  the  world  before  "the  In- 
terpreter "  came,  or  to  be  prematurely  sub- 


110  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

mitted  to  the  peril  of  mythical  additions  and 
deformities  even  among  the  chosen  people. 
It  was,  therefore,  for  ages  to  have  the  form 
of  pure  trust  in  God,  unaided,  as  it  was  un- 
weakened,  by  any  pictures  of  the  fancy  or 
any  necrological  view  that  might  take  the 
form  either  of  poetry  or  philosophy.  In  the 
descent  to  the  Greek  Hades  there  was  no 
such  leaning  on  the  divine  arm,  no  such  con- 
fidence as  that  in  the  strength  of  which  the 
Psalmist  ventured  clown  into  the  terra  um- 
brarum,  or  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  ; 
there  was  no  faith  like  that  which  led  the 
religious  Jew,  in  view  not  only  of  the  un- 
known but  unimagined  futurity,  to  exclaim, 
"Into  thy  hands  do  I  commit  my  spirit  ; 
Thou  hast  redeemed  me,  Lord  God  of  truth.'7 
For  the  Hebrew  mind,  the  first  great  idea 
was  God,  his  sovereignty  and  holiness,  what- 
ever might  be  the  destiny  of  men  ;  and  this 
brings  us  back  to  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  Old  Testament  rites  and  symbols  as  com- 
pared   with  all    others    then    in    the  world. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  Ill 

They  were  holy.  They  ever  denoted  the 
pure,  whether  in  the  soul  itself  or  in  the 
body,  as  typical  of  the  spiritual  cleanliness. 
They  denoted  separation,  election,  or  setting 
apart  for  God.  In  a  word,  they  were  types 
of  holiness,  and  in  this  they  were  as  far  re- 
moved from  all  heathen  worship  on  the  one 
hand,  as  from  all  heathen  philosophizing  on 
the  other. 

How  small  the  intervals  both  of  time  and 
space,  between  the  Hebrew  prophets  and 
the  Greek  philosophers  !  How  preposterous, 
then,  the  notion  that  God  chose  the  language 
of  the  former  because  the  world  had  not  yet 
made  sufficient  spiritual  progress  to  be  ad- 
dressed in  the  more  logical  or  intellectual 
style  of  the  latter !  How  still  more  absurd 
is  it  when  we  are  told  that  this  Jewish  mind, 
as  represented  by  Paul,  could  not  understand 
the  more  spiritual  Greek  as  set  forth  in  the 
school  of  Plato,  or  the  high  morality  of  the 
Stoics.  With  such  a  taste,  for  we  can  give  it 
no  higher  name,  it  is  impossible  to  dispute. 


112  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

If  any  cannot  see,  or  rather  feel,  how  im- 
measurably the  ethical  ideas  of  the  Apostles, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  direct  teachings  of  Christ, 
transcend  those  of  Epictetus  and  Seneca,  then 
all  argument  is  thrown  away  ;  the  difference 
is  radical  and  irreconcilable. 

The  absurdity,  however,  is  more  evident, 
it  becomes  even  superlative,  when  it  is  as- 
sumed that  the  modern  mind, — the  common 
modern  mind,  we  mean,  as  it  appears  in  the 
ordinary  literary  and  political  life, — so  far 
transcends  in  ethical  purity  both  the  Greek 
and  Jewish  ideas  of  the  holy  and  the  divine, 
that  we  need  a  new  theological  language,  or 
that  the  old  Scriptural  style,  though  yet  re- 
spected as  the  vehicle  of  ancient  thought  now 
obsolete,  should  be  henceforth  regarded  as 
the  "accommodating7'  teacher  of  those  ad- 
vanced conceptions  of  God  and  his  eternal 
kingdom  that  have  come  from  our  modern 
aesthetics  and  our  modern  knowledge.  In 
this  view,  so  condescending  whilst  so  conserv- 
ative, the  Bible    is  still  to  be  retained   like 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  113 

some  rough  though  high-priced  picture  of 
the  "  old  masters  ;"  its  antique  setting  even 
is  to  be  undisturbed,  and  its  strange  color- 
ing left  untouched  through  regard  for  its 
venerable  antiquity  ;  but  then  it  is  to  be  as- 
sociated with  ideas  of  a  higher  order,  and 
with  such  a  "  philosophy  of  religion  "  as  prob- 
ably the  old  writers  would  have  taught  had 
they  shared  in  the  present  spiritual  advance. 
Now,  to  do  justice  to  this  modern  claim,  it 
must  be  treated  according  to  the  assumption 
it  necessarily  involves  if  it  be  a  real  progress, 
that  is,  a  real  spiritual  progress.  To  be  con- 
sistent with  that  undeniable  test  that  has  just 
been  laid  down,  its  chief  ground  of  confidence 
can  be  rationally  nothing  else  than  some  as- 
tonishing increase  in  holiness,  unearthliness, 
and  heavenly-mindedness,  supposed  to  have 
been  lately  made  in  certain  schools  in  Ger- 
many, and  among  those  who  speak  of  them- 
selves as  the  leading  thinkers  of  our  own 
land.  So  clear  as  well  as  profound  have  been 
their  discoveries  of  God  and  eternal  things 


114  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

that  an  entirely  new  aspect  has  been  given  to 
theology.  It  is  also  to  be  maintained  on  the 
ground  of  a  similar  general  advance  in  holi- 
ness, brought  about  through  the  influence  of 
these  ''leading  minds."  Society  in  its  com- 
mon thinking  is  so  much  nearer  heaven, 
nearer  the  empyrean  of  truth, — the  literary 
world  is  so  much  more  pure,  the  "  educated 
classes,"  as  they  are  called,  are  becoming  so 
much  less  earthly,  so  much  more  occupied 
with  divine  contemplations,  that  we  have  a 
right  to  expect  a  higher  style  of  revelation 
than  was  vouchsafed  to  former  times.  Some 
of  the  language  we  have  just  employed  may 
seem  strange  as  thus  applied.  This  talk  of 
superior  holiness  may  strike  even  the  sup- 
posed claimants  as  being  somehow  out  of 
place,  or  as  suggesting,  in  their  case,  inhar- 
monious ideas.  But  surely  this  arrogant  as- 
sumption of  a  spiritual  advance  carrying  men 
beyond  the  spirituality  of  the  Bible,  means 
just  this,  means  all  this,  or  it  means  nothing. 
Judged,   then,  by  this  standard,  tried  by 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  115 

this  test,  what,  we  may  ask  in  all  serious- 
ness, is  our  political  world,  our  literary  world, 
our  "  thinking  class,"  our  men  of  culture,  that 
they  should  make  this  claim,  or  be  supposed 
to  occupy  so  much  higher  a  position  in  re- 
spect to  the  unearthly  things,  or  those  great 
matters  of  eternity  that  have  agitated  the 
minds  of  men  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world  or  the  day  when  humanity  first  began 
to  think  or  feel.  What  is  there  in  the  mod- 
ern public  man  that  places  him,  in  this  re- 
spect, above  the  public  man  of  former  times  ? 
To  go  no  farther  back  into  the  remote  past, 
wherein  has  he  any  advantage,  except  what 
the  Bible  gives  him,  if  it  gives  him  any,  over 
the  Roman  senator  ?  We  say,  if  it  gives  him 
any,  for  unless  it  has  had  a  direct  converting, 
sanctifying,  enlightening  influence  upon  his 
soul,  we  may  even  regard  the  heathen  as  the 
nobler  man.  Christianity,  if  it  has  not  raised, 
has  lowered  the  other.  The  mere  nominal 
profession,  with  its  habitual  and  demeaning 
hollowness,  has  taken  from  the  native  man- 


116  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

hood  which  appears  so  splendid  in  some  of 
the  historical  examples  of  the  olden  time, 
whilst  it  has  conferred  no  compensating  heav- 
enly grace.  But  select  the  highest  modern 
specimens  of  this  class.  Wherein,  we  may 
well  ask,  does  such  a  one  show  more  spiritu- 
ality than  Cicero,  a  better  hope  than  Agricola, 
a  higher  sense  of  the  world's  great  evil  than 
Tacitus?  In  short,  take  away  the  direct 
effects  of  regenerating  grace  on  individual 
souls — for  these  are  yet,  as  in  the  early  cen- 
turies, the  rare  exceptions — and  where  is  the 
great  spiritual  difference  between  our  nomi- 
nally Christian  and  the  ancient  heathen 
State? 

It  is,  indeed,  a  most  preposterous  claim 
that  is  thus  put  forth  on  behalf  of  our  social 
and  literary  condition,  —  especially  as  it  is 
sometimes  partially  sanctioned  in  our  modern 
preaching.  We  are  not  more  unworldly  than 
the  Patriarchs,  more  spiritual  than  the  Proph- 
ets, more  heavenly-minded  than  the  Apostles  ; 
we  are  not  nearer  the  great  celestial  verities 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  117 

than  men  of  the  olden  time,  at  least  by  any 
philosophy,  or  science,  or  culture  of  our  own 
that  is  independent  of  the  study  and  the 
grace  of  the  Scriptures  ;  we  are  not  beyond 
the  Bible  either  in  its  letter  or  its  thought. 
There  are  ideas  there  the  world  has  not  yet 
fathomed  ;  there  are  words  and  figures  there 
whose  rich  significance  interpretation  has  not 
yet  exhausted.  The  Scriptural  style  and  the 
Scriptural  language  are  not  meant  for  one 
age,  but  for  all  ages.  Its  orientalisms  will 
grow  in  the  west  ;  its  archaisms  will  be  found 
still  young  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Sci- 
ence is  ever  changing  as  it  is  ever  unfinished, 
its  language  is  ever  becoming  obsolete  as  it 
is  ever  superseded,  philosophy  is  continually 
presenting  some  new  phase  of  its  ever-revolv- 
ing cycles,  the  political  world  is  ever  a  dis- 
solving view,  literature  becomes  effete  and 
art  decays,  "but  the  Word  of  our  God  shall 
stand  forever."  Not  so  sure  are  the  types  of 
nature  as  even  the  form  and  feature  of  this 
written  word,  if  it  be  indeed  the  word  of  God, 


118  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

uttered  in  humanity,  breathed  into  human 
souls,  informing  human  emotions,  conceived 
in  human  thoughts,  made  outward  in  human 
images,  and  indissolubly  bound,  as  the  won- 
drous narrative  of  the  supernatural,  in  the 
long  chain  of  human  history. 


CHAPTER     VIII. 

The  Exdures*g  Word — Christ's  Declaration,  Matt.  v.  18 — "Not 
one  Iota  shall  fail" — The  Reference  is  to  the  Spiritual  Effect — 
Every  Part  of  the  Scriptures  contributes  to  the  Great  Consum- 
mation— The  True  Textus  Receptus — Written  in  the  Heart  of 
the  Church  Militant  and  Triumphant — The  Living  Word,  the  Liv- 
ing People — The  Everlasting  Codex— The  "  Fight  of  Faith" — 
The  Bible  Question  ever  calling  out  a  New  Power — The  Problem 
it  presents  in  History — No  Human  Intellect  Competent  to  Solve 
it — Except  on  the  Ground  of  the  Supernatural — Other  Sacred 
Books  belong  to  but  One  Age — Are  addressed  to  but  One  Phase 
of  Humanity — Strange  Universality  of  the  Bible — The  Rationalist 
has  no  Eyes  for  the  great  Wonder  of  the  Book. 

"Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the 
law  and  the  prophets ;  I  have  not  come  to 
destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto 
you,  until  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one 
iota  or  one  point  of  the  law  shall  never  pass 
away  until  all  shall  be  fulfilled.77  These  re- 
markable words  have  been  variously  inter- 
preted.     They   have  been  referred  to  the 


120  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

concise  summing  of  the  Jewish  code,  as  given 
by  Christ  in  the  two  great  commandments  of 
love.  They  have  been  regarded  as  denoting 
the  law  of  nature,  as  it  is  called,  or  the 
general  principles  of  ethics,  as  recognized  by 
the  conscience.  Their  interpretation  has 
been  found  in  the  ceremonial  ordinances  as 
typical,  or  in  the  law  of  sacrifice  as  fulfilled 
in  its  substance  by  the  great  sacrifice  on  the 
cross.  But  there  is  a  minuteness,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  a  universality  in  this  language, 
that  would  seem  to  demand  a  corresponding 
exegesis.  The  laiv,  as  thus  used  by  our 
Saviour,  and  as  it  was  employed  by  devout 
souls  in  the  Old  Testament,  would  seem  to 
be  another  name  for  God's  written  revela- 
tion— the  canon,  or  "rule  he  hath  given  to 
direct  us  how  we  may  glorify  and  enjoy  him." 
Thus  received,  it  would  include,  even  in  the 
present  passage,  not  only  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  but  also  the  words  of  Christ  him- 
self, and  all  that  is  revealed  by  his  commis- 
sioned   messengers    as  the  full  complement 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  121 

and  development  of  these  older  scriptures. 
God's  whole  written  revelation  in  the  world, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  the  whole 
canon  of  Scripture,  all  that  is  recognized  by 
Christ  as  ayiai  yyacpai  or  Holy  Writings, — 
"not  one  iota  or  one  point  shall  fail.7'  The 
special  words  constitute  a  proverbial  expres- 
sion of  universality  to  denote  the  completeness 
of  effect.  It  cannot  intend  the  perfect  pres- 
ervation of  the  written  integrity.  There 
were  defective  readings  and  defective  trans- 
lations in  Christ's  own  time  ;  although  it  is 
indeed  wonderful  how,  beyond  all  other  works 
in  the  world,  these  writings  have  been  pre- 
served without  the  loss  of  an  idea,  and,  we 
may  venture  to  say,  without  the  change  of  a 
figure,  notwithstanding  all  the  variations  of 
words  and  orthography  that  the  keenest  criti- 
cism has  ever  collected. 

But  we  may  suppose  this  language  of  uni- 
versality to  have  a  wider,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  a  deeper  meaning  than  either  of  these 
views  would  assign  to  it.     It  transcends  the 
6 


122  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

rationalistic  interpretation,  even  as  it  takes 
in  more  than  any  cabalistic  veneration  of 
syllables  and  letters.  It  embraces  the  written 
word  in  its  substantial  correctness  as  ever 
capable  of  being  brought  out  by  fair  com- 
parison, whilst  it  has  its  truer  significance,  its 
more  interior  significance,  in  the  living  word 
as  it  has  been  copied  in  the  soul,  and  printed 
through  ages  on  the  hearts  of  the  Holy 
People.  This  is  the  textus  receptus  that  has 
been  carried  down  on  something  more  dura- 
ble than  parchment.  This  is  the  spiritual 
Mishna,  as  the  Jews  called  the  higher  exem- 
plar, or  second  edition  of  the  law.  Every 
part  has  been  thus  impressed  on  souls  here  or 
in  eternity.  A  spiritual  stereoscope,  could 
we  imagine  such  an  instrument,  might  thus 
reveal  its  clear  perspective,  even  though 
deeply  hidden  from  the  common  outward 
view.  It  is  in  the  memories  of  the  Church 
militant  and  triumphant.  If  lost  every- 
where else,  in  every  outward  form  of  writ- 
ing, here  is  the  true  spiritual  codex,  and  from 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  123 

this  might  it  be  restored,  even  as  it  has  been 
said,  though  it  may  be  h}7perbolically,  that  if 
all  the  Bible  had  been  lost  as  it  existed  in 
manuscripts,  it  might  still  have  been  recover- 
ed from  the  Commentaries  and  devotional 
writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers.  It  is  the 
effect  of  this  written  word,  we  think  the 
Savious  means, — the  effect  of  this  whole 
revelation,  old  and  new,  first  on  the  Church, 
and  secondly,  on  the  mind  and  life  of  the 
race.  Not  one  jot  or  tittle  shall  fail  from 
the  law  till  all  be  fulfilled.  No  part  shall 
be  without  its  contribution  to  this  great  end. 
Its  history,  its  poetry,  its  precept,  its  proph- 
ecy, its  genealogies  even,  will  be  found  to 
be  all  necessary  parts,  not  merely  of  the  in- 
ception, but  of  the  continuance  and  the  con- 
summation of  the  work, — all  necessary  parts 
of  this  standing  exhibition  of  God,  or  the 
supernatural,  in  human  redemption.  And  so 
shall  the  Bible  remain  "  unto  the  last  syllable 
of  recorded  time,"  the  great  spiritual  power 
of  the  world.     It  shall  live  until  all  history 


121  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

shall  be  seen  to  be  but  its  fulfilment,  and  all 
the  divine  dealings  with  our  race,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  close  of  its  career,  to  have 
had  constant  reference  to  its  "  Great  Salva- 
tion." Nay,  beyond  this,  even  in  eternity 
shall  it  survive.  Such  would  seem  to  be  a 
fair  interpretation  of  the  language  on  which 
we  are  dwelling.  "Heaven  and  earth  shall 
pass  away,  but  not  one  point  of  the  law  shall 
fail."  In  this  its  spiritual  power,  and  in  this 
its  ineffaceable  spiritual  impression,  shall  it 
be  among  "the  things  that  remain,"  even 
after  God  has  arisen  to  "  shake,  not  the  earth 
only,  but  also  the  heavens."  The  present 
order  of  nature  shall  cease,  the  secular  his- 
tory shall  be  closed,  even  the  spiritual  and 
ecclesiastical  shall  be  changed,  "  but  the  word 
of  our  God  shall  stand  forever."  Similar  to 
this  is  the  passage  Matt.  xxiv.  35,  Luke  xxi. 
33 — "  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but 
my  words  shall  not  pass  away."  The  decla- 
rations are  clearly  parallel  in  their  wider 
significance.     The  law,   in  the   one  case,  as 


IX    THE    SCRIPTURES.  125 

the  known  term  for  all  Scripture,  and  the 
words  of  Christ  as  setting  forth  its  perfect 
fulfilment,  are  but  different  names  for  one 
and  the  same  everlasting,  unchanging  reve- 
lation. 

A  man  may  find  difficulties  in  the  Bible  ; 
but  surely  no  intelligent  mind  can  view  it 
without  wonder.  There  is  certainly  one  re- 
markable change  in  the  aspect  of  the  Biblical 
question  which  has  been  produced  by  the 
learned  study  of  late  years.  Infidelity  is  as 
rife  as  ever  ;  the  opposition  both  of  the  com- 
mon worldly,  and  of  the  philosophical  worldly 
mind,  is  as  strong  as  ever  ;  but  the  age  of 
scoffing  has  gone  by.  There  can  be  no  more 
Paines  and  Yoltaires.  The  days  of  easy  un- 
belief, as  well  as  of  easy  belief,  have  passed 
away.  It  is  becoming  a  more  serious  ques- 
tion, a  more  earnest  controversy  for  both 
parties.  "  The  fight  of  faith"  is  waxing 
stronger  and  closer  ;  it  is  every  day  present- 
ing, on  each  side,  new  and  bolder  issues. 
There  is,  too,  this  new  feature,  that  each  is 


126  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

taking  the  attitude  of  assailant.  Christianity 
no  longer  stands  simply  on  its  defence. 
The  war  is  driven  into  the  enemy's  camp, 
yea,  into  the  very  citadel  of  unbelief.  It  is 
shown  that  the  rejection  of  the  Bible  is  the 
rejection  of  all  belief  beyond  the  most  earthly 
and  sensual.  The  field  of  the  lists  is  being 
narrowed  down  to  the  questions — Revelation, 
or  Atheism — Revelation,  or  the  giving  up  of 
all  hope  in  a  life  beyond  the  grave.  The 
middle  ground  is  being  rapidly  cleared  away, 
and  all  who  think  at  all  are  looking  breath- 
lessly for  the  result  of  this  more  than  Titanic 
conflict,  when  faith  shall  rise  higher  than 
ever,  and  revelation  be  more  strongly  believ- 
ed than  ever,  or  "Chaos  come  again"  not 
only  in  all  religious  credence,  but  over  that 
whole  firmament  of  ideas  so  closely  connected 
with  it.  The  mighty  reasoner,  Time,  is  fast 
bringing  to  this  conclusion  the  world's  best 
thought.  Poetry,  Philosophy,  Art,  all  that 
is  spiritual  in  eloquence,  all  that  is  inspiring 
in  nature,  all  that  is  stimulating  and  elevat- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  127 

ing,  even  in  science,  are  inseparable  eventually 
from  religion,  even  as  religion  is  inseparable 
from  revelation.  They  might  maintain  a 
lingering  twilight  existence  after  its  sun  had 
forever  set,  but  must,  inevitably,  sooner  or 
later,  go  out  in  the  same  overwhelming  dark- 
ness. In  earlier  periods  of  the  earth's  his- 
tory they  might,  perhaps,  have  longer  sur- 
vived such  a  ''disastrous  eclipse,"  but  now, 
as  every  reason  teaches  us  to  believe,  the 
obscuration  would  be  all  the  more  rapid  in 
proportion  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  conflict, 
and  the  depth  of  the  despair. 

It  is  thus  that  God  is  putting  this  question 
in  a  way  to  try  the  world  as  it  has  never 
been  tried  before.  He  who  cannot  see  this 
is  blind  to  one  of  the  most  portentous  signs 
of  the  times.  Even  among  the  most  ration- 
alistic and  the  most  sceptical,  it  is  coming  to 
be  both  felt  and  acknowledged,  that  this  phe- 
nomenon of  the  Bible  and  its  wondrous  hold 
upon  mankind  presents  a  problem  requiring 
for  its  solution  an  amount  of  learning,  and  a 


128  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

depth  of  thought,  demanded  by  no  other  in 
the  history  or  psychology  of  our  race.  What 
a  place  that  book  has  occupied  in  our  world  ! 
What  a  blank  would  have  been  left,  what  a 
blank  would  now  be  left,  without  it !  Even 
the  difficulties  of  belief  increase  the  difficul- 
ties of  rejecting  it.  How  it  lives  on  in  spite 
of  the  most  startling  objections,  not  now  for 
the  first  time  met,  but  as  clearly  seen  and  as 
strongly  put  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago 
as  in  the  present  century.  It  has  not  only 
maintained  itself,  but  false  philosophies  and 
pretended  revelations  have  obtained  a  stronger 
hold  in  the  world,  simply  by  counterfeiting 
its  outward  semblance.  Thus  has  it  made  its 
way,  carrying  its  own  burdens,  and  the  much 
heavier  weights  that  human  depravity  has 
put  upon  it.  Tested  by  the  chances  of  any 
mere  human  conflict,  of  any  philosophic  or 
literary  strife,  it  would  ages  ago  have  van- 
ished from  the  field  and  been  consigned  to 
oblivion  ;  but  here  it  is  yet,  the  mightiest 
element  in  human  thought,  and  challenging 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  129 

to  the  conflict  the  mightiest  of  human  antag- 
onisms. How  it  rises  up,  ever  higher  and 
stronger,  against  every  fresh  assault !  every 
new  phase  of  unbelief,  when  it  is  really  new. 
only  calling  out  some  before  unknown  aspect 
of  power  in  this  exhaustless  defence.  But  it 
is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  Bible  has  kept 
its  ground  in  the  world  ;  it  has  ever  been  ex- 
tending itself,  not  only  into  new  territory, 
but  into  new  fields  of  thought.  Philosophy 
assumes  to  be  independent  of  it,  but  finds,  in 
the  end,  that  it  must  go  the  way  of  all  hu- 
man speculations,  or  fortify  itself  by  ideas 
that  can  never  more  belong  to  human  think- 
ing should  this  book  be  discarded  from  the 
world.  So  science,  too,  often  "  seems  first 
in  its  own  cause,  until  revelation  cometh  and 
searcheth  it."  Some  startling  discovery  has 
raised  the  hopes  of  unbelief,  but  soon  this 
more  ancient  power  in  the  world,  this  power 
of  the  unseen  and  the  eternal,  rides  over  the 
sense  difficulty,  or  shows  it  to  belong  to  a 
lower  plane   of  knowledge  with  which  the 


130  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

diviner  truth  can  have  no  actual  or  imagined 
collision. 

It  is  easy  to  make  objections  to  the  Scrip- 
tures,— objections,  it  may  be  admitted,  ex- 
tremely difficult  of  solution, — some  of  them, 
perhaps,  baffling  every  attempt  at  solution  ; 
but  to  explain  the  strange  phenomenon,  and 
the  strange  history  connected  with  it,  this  is 
the  great  and  crowning  difficulty  that  puts 
all  others  out  of  sight.  It  is  comparatively 
easy  to  descend  into  the  Avernian  pit  of  infi- 
del cavil,  but  to  ascend  therefrom  to  any  clear 
hypothesis  of  human  destiny  after  revelation 
has  been  once  rejected,  or  to  show  how  cer- 
tain ideas  could  ever  have  been  in  the  world 
without  it,  hoc  opus  hie  labor  est ;  this  is  the 
adventure  for  which  our  modern  world  finds 
no  Hercules  ;  this  is  the  undertaking  of  which 
infidelity  has  not  carefully  counted  the  cost, 
although  there  are  signs  of  the  coming  con- 
flict which  clearly  show  that  her  confident 
advocates  will  be  compelled  to  do  so.  No 
human  intellect — we  boldly  venture  the  as  • 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  131 

sertion — no  human  intellect,  and  no  amount 
of  human  learning  yet  gathered,  are  compe- 
tent to  the  task  of  accounting,  on  any  known 
natural  principles,  for  the  strange  existence 
in  our  world  of  a  series  of  writings,  and  cor- 
responding influences,  so  unearthly  in  their 
power  yet  so  human  in  their  form,  so  deep 
in  the  world's  thought  yet  so  constantly  in 
conflict  with  all  contemporary  thinking,  and, 
therefore,  at  each  period  of  its  existence  so 
utterly  opposed  to  any  idea  of  development, 
— teaching  the  absolute  unity  of  God  through 
all  the  black  night  of  the  Western  polythe- 
ism, the  vivid  personality  of  God  in  the 
denser  darkness  of  the  Eastern  pantheism, 
the  holiness  of  God  amid  every  where  sur- 
rounding forms  of  worship  so  impure  that 
they  cannot  be  described,  the  unrepresent- 
able essence  of  God  when  the  world  was  full 
of  a  monstrous  idolatry  or  a  foul  Egyptian 
symbolism,  —  proclaiming  salvation  by  the 
Cross  when  the  schools  were  priding  them- 
selves on  the  perfection  of  their  ethical  phi- 


132  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

losophy,  announcing  the  resurrection  of  the 
body  when  the  select  thinkers  were  soaring 
in  their  Platonic  spiritualism,  and  a  new  and 
heavenly  life  for  the  soul  when  the  vulgar 
herd  of  Epicurus  were  filling  the  air  with 
the  swinish  noise  of  their  sensualism, — tri- 
umphing alike  over  the  Senecas  and  the 
Neros,  the  Antonines  and  the  Domitians, 
overthrowing  the  giant  power  of  ancient  Pa- 
ganism, driving  it  from  that  last  strong-hold 
of  conservatism  it  had  sought  in  the  philo- 
sophic revival  of  the  early  myths,  shedding 
a  holy  light  during  the  long  period  of  Barba- 
rian and  Mediaeval  darkness,  breaking  forth 
with  new  splendor  at  the  Reformation,  and 
yet  filling  men's  minds  with  fear,  or  sustain- 
ing them  in  heavenly  hope,  in  the  face  of  a 
war  that  never  raged  so  fiercely  as  in  these 
days  when  naturalism  and  criticism  com- 
bined, as  they  were  never  combined  before, 
are  doing  their  utmost  to  shake  the  author- 
ity of  its  divine  mission. 

Every  other  assumed  revelation  lias  been 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  133 

addressed  to  but  one  phase  of  humanity. 
They  have  been  adapted  to  one  age,  to  one 
people,  or  one  peculiar  style  of  human 
thought.  Thejr  books  have  never  assumed 
a  cosmical  character,  or  been  capable  of  any 
catholic  expansion.  They  could  never  be 
"  accommodated7'  to  other  ages,  or  accli- 
mated to  other  parts  of  the  world.  They 
are  indigenous  plants,  that  can  never  grow 
out  of  the  zone  that  gave  them  birth.  Zoro- 
aster never  made  a  disciple  beyond  Persia  or 
its  immediate  neighborhood  ;  Confucius  is 
wholly  Chinese  as  Socrates  is  wholly  Greek. 
But  Zoroaster  and  Confucius,  it  may  be  said, 
were  unknown  to  the  world  at  large,  and 
therefore  never  had  a  fair  trial.  This  is  true. 
Their  names,  indeed,  are  often  in  the  mouths 
of  the  superficial  adversaries  of  the  Christian 
faith,  but  even  now  the  most  learned  can 
hardly  claim  familiarity  with  their  writings. 
The  question,  however,  still  returns  :  why 
have  they  remained  so  separate,  so  powerless 
out  of  their  own  early  period,  and  their  own 


134  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

peculiar  nationality,  unless  it  be  because  of 
their  utter  want  of  any  world-life  or  world- 
ideas,  capable  of  stirring  any  universal  emo- 
tion, or  producing  any  universal  effect?  Why 
are  the  remains  of  these  shut  up  in  the  libra- 
ries of  the  Archaeologist,  whilst  other  Ori- 
ental books  more  ancient  still  have  become 
household  words,  and  been  multiplied  in  mil- 
lions and  billions  of  copies  through  every  part 
of  the  civilized  world  ?  It  is  a  question  cer- 
tainly demanding  the  most  serious  study  of 
all  who  would  be  thought  to  take  a  profound 
view  of  human  affairs.  Writings  from  the 
far  East,  from  the  earliest  East,  records  al- 
most coeval  with  the  flood,  yea,  some  of 
them  not  irrationally  supposed  to  have  cross- 
ed its  world-dividing  waters,  still  taught  in 
the  nursery,  still  read  in  our  primary  schools, 
still  taxing  all  the  research  of  the  most  learn- 
ed, still  furnishing  the  fountain  source  of  all 
that  can  worthily  be  called  devotion  or  spir- 
ituality in  the  earth, — giving  the  child  his 
first  ideas  of  God's  creating  power,  and  cheer- 
ing the   aged  and  the  dying  with  the  only 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  135 

hope  that  can  sustain  the  soul  in  its  dread  of 
the  primaeval  penalty, —  the  hope  that  is 
found  in  the  early,  the  oft- repeated  promise 
of  a  conquering  Saviour,  and  the  final  tri- 
umph of  redeeming  love  !  What  is  there 
that  blinds  our  rational  interpreters,  so  called, 
to  these  wonderful  aspects  of  the  Bible  prob- 
lem ?  They  are  sharp  enough  to  discover 
eveiwthing  else  but  that  which  so  deeply 
impresses  the  religious  mind,  and,  without 
which,  the  book,  though  still  curious  as  an 
antiquarian  document,  is  hardly  worth  the 
learned  pains  they  are  so  laboriously  bestow- 
ing upon  it.  Some  of  them  are  so  keen- 
sighted  that  from  a  few  chapters  in  Genesis, 
and  a  few  slight  differences  in  Hebrew  words, 
they  can  give  us  the  chronology  of  the  Welt- 
alter  ;  they  can  detect  the  cause  of  the  mis- 
take that  assigns  Lamech  to  the  last  period  of 
the  Cainitic  instead  of  his  true  position  in  the 
commencement  of  the  Set  hie  cycle.*    From 

*  See  the  Ninth  No.  of  the  Jahrbiicher  der  Biblischen 
Wissenschaft  von  Ileinrich  Ewald,  1857,  1858. 


136  THE    DIVINE     HUMAN 

these  data  although  so  hidden  in  the  letter, 
their  learned  and  fertile  imaginations  deter- 
mine satisfactorily  the  true  relations  of  the 
Sethic  to  the  Shemitic  Welt-alter  ;  they  know 
all  about  the  Jahvethum,  and  the  Antedilu- 
vian religious  sects  of  the  Jahveists  and  the 
Elohists  ;  they  can  go  back  of  the  writer,  or 
writers,  and  tell  us  what  were  the  ethnolog- 
ical conceptions  which  these  early  "sages" 
meant  to  represent  in  their  fragmentary  and 
badly-connected  myths  ;  yea,  from  their  own 
higher  u  stand  point"  they  can  even  concede 
to  them  a  kind  of  inspiration,  but  it  is  the 
inspiration  of  great  "historic  ideas,"  which 
in  those  primitive  times  could  embody  them- 
selves in  no  other  forms  but  those  of  a  myth- 
ical genealogizing.  All  this  they  can  sec 
very  plainly  :  those  primitive  sages,  the) 
have  discovered,  were  pure  idealists  ;  the) 
were  even  then  thinking  out,  and  expressing, 
in  their  mythical  way,  a  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory. But  the  great  idea,  that  which  was 
truly  expressed,  and  has  ever  since,  more  or 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  137 

less,  affected  the  world's  religious  thinking, 
for  this  our  rational  critics  have  no  eyes. 
They  see  nothing  wonderful  in  that  earliest 
prediction  of  the  earliest  Welt-alter,  that  the 
"Seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the  ser- 
pent's head," — that  one  who  is  divine  from 
his  very  work,  and  yet  the  Son  of  Man,  shall 
vanquish  the  power  of  evil  and  redeem  his 
suffering  brethren  from  its  long  and  cruel 
dominion.  Wise  are  they,  even  above  all 
that  is  written,  in  regard  to  this  first  twilight 
of  the  world's  chronology,  whilst  they  fail  to 
understand  how  this  book  of  Genesis,  scanty 
as  are  its  records,  thus  furnishes  the  key  to 
all  following  history,  and  discover  nothing 
worthy  of  their  profounclest  thought  in  the 
fact,  that  these  "myths"  of  the  early  and 
distant  East  are  still  exercising  such  a  power 
over  regions,  and  ages,  and  manners,  and 
institutions,  so  different  in  outward  form,  so 
far  removed,  in  space  and  time,  from  those 
to  whom  they  were  first  given. 


CHAPTER     IX. 


The  Universality  of  the  Scriptures  —  The  Bible  Compared  with 
other  Books  —  The  Paradox  —  The  most  National  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  Oosmical  of  Writings  —  Its  World-Life  —  Its  Early 
Seclusion  —  The  "Going  Forth  of  the  Law  from  Zion  "  — Sudden 
and  Powerful  Effect  upon  the  Greek  and  Roman  World  —  Hindoo 
and  Persian  Scriptures,  no  Life  out  of  India  and  Persia  — '1  lie 
Koran  —  Xext  to  the  Bible  in  Catholicity  —  This  comes  from  its 
Shemitic  Character —  Reasons  in  the  Bible  itself  for  its  tenacious 
Life  —  No  Book  so  Translatable  —  Other  "Sacred  Books''  shock 
us  by  the  Monstrosity  of  their  Human  —  Their  Inhuman-wess  —  1  he 
Grotescpie  and  Want  of  Dignity  in  their  Supernatural  —  In  the 
Scriptures  the  Marvellous  is  the  Presumptive  —  The  Supernatural 
becomes  Easy  of  Belief. 


The  other  writings  to  which  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  have  been  compared  never  did 
exert,  and  never  could  have  exerted  such  an 
influence.  No  historical  events  could  ever 
have  given  it  to  them.  It  was  not  from  the 
want  of  opportunity  that  their  hidden  life 
had  been  denied  its  true  manifestation.     The 


THE     DIVINE    HUMAN.  139 

books  of  the  Bible  were  originally  as  seclud- 
ed as  these,  yea,  more  secluded,  we  may  say, 
more  strictly  national ;  but  this  only  makes  still 
more  marvellous  the  mystery  of  that  mighty 
dominion  they  exercised,  when  in  God's 
good  time  the  seals  were  loosed,  and  these 
strange  Eastern  writings,  so  unphilosophical, 
so  unlike  anything  that  ever  came  from  the 
schools,  were  disclosed  to  the  Western  world. 
For  ages  had  they  been  shut  up  in  the 
mountains  of  Judea,  tv  %ivi  fktQpaQMfA  totzq) 
7i6()Qto  jtov  ovn  %v{;  riuertQccc,  tTVoytwg,  if  we 
may  accommodate  that  remarkable  language 
of  Plato*  in  which  he  seems  to  indulge  in 
something  more  than  a  conjecture,  that  in 
some  distant  region,  and  coming  from  some 
distant  past,  IV  rivi  ajzeiQo)  tfqi  na()eh]lv66TL 
XQovo),  there  might  be  a  wisdom  unknown  to 
the  Greek  and  yet  to  be  revealed  to  the 
world. (5)     There  for  ages  had  they  remained, 

*  See  the  whole  of  this  remarkable  passage.  Plato 
Rep.  vii.  :  498,  c.  In  some  barbarian  region  far  a  tray. 
In  some  part  of  the  immense  time  that  is  past. 


MO  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

a  "  garden  enclosed,  a  fountain  sealed,"  until 
"the  everlasting  doors  were  lifted  up,"  and 
the  command  men  t  came  that  "  the  Law  should 
go  forth  from  Zion,  and  the  Word  of  the 
Lord  from  Jerusalem."  How  sudden,  how 
irresistible  the  effect  !  How  few  the  genera- 
tions before  this  Chronicle  of  Redemption, 
this  old  Epic  of  "  the  Chosen  People"  and 
their  Hero  Messiah,  together  with  those 
later  yet  still  Jewish  writings  that  contained 
the  world-interpretation  of  the  more  ancient 
national  covenant,  filled  and  vivified  all  the 
literature,  all  the  philosophy,  yea,  all  the 
thinking  of  the  vast  Roman  empire  !  How 
soon  it  modified,  yea,  completely  transform- 
ed, that  whole  historical  state  out  of  which 
arose  our  modern  Europe  and  our  modern 
civilization  !  What  divine  energy  was  this, 
that  so  far  surpassed  all  former  powers  that 
had  arisen  out  of  the  Occidental  mind,  and 
might,  therefore,  be  supposed  so  much  better 
adapted  to  it?  Plato,  Aristotle,  Zeno,  Socra- 
tes,— Academics,  Stoics,  Rhetoricians,  Moral- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  141 

ists — they  had  never  so  stirred  the  world. 
theij  had  touched  no  universal  chords  in  hu- 
in?in  souls,  although  nothing  could  seemingly 
be  more  abstract,  and,  therefore,  more  uni- 
versal, than  the  language  of  their  precepts. 
Their  speculations,  though  in  appearance  so 
general  and  so  profound,  did  not,  after  all, 
reach  down  to  that  which  underlies  all  human 
nature,  as  human  nature,  in  its  constitution 
and  its  wants.  They  had  no  Fall  to  tell  of, 
no  Redemption.  The  former  might  have 
been  dimly  shadowed  in  some  of  their  poetic 
myths,  but  the  latter  had  no  place  in  their 
philosophy.  The  world  was  caring  little 
about  them  or  their  systems  ;  it  was  fast 
sinking  into  darkness,  with  all  the  light  they 
gave  ;  it  was  becoming  more  corrupt,  more 
worthless,  with  all  they  said  about  the  excel- 
lency of  virtue  and  the  dignity  of  reason  ; 
more  deformed  and  false,  with  all  their  talk 
about  the  "  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good." 
But  when  Christ  and  Moses  came,  when  the 
prophets  came,  and  He  of  whom  they  wrote, 


142  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

when  Evangelists  and  Apostles  came,  bow 
mighty  the  change,  and  how  soon  did  it 
manifest  itself  in  so  great  a  revolution  of  hu- 
man ideas  !  Will  some  of  the  men  who  talk  so 
much  of  development,  explain  this  mystery 
that  has  withstood  all  the  "  sneers  of  Gibbon, 
and  stands  yet  the  inexplicable  fact  of  the 
world."  Development  is  the  magic  word  ; 
but  development  from  what  ?  From  what 
seed  grew  this  sudden  and  mighty  tree  ? 
From  what  seed  in  the  Greek  mind  in  the 
Roman  mind,  in  the  Jewish  mind  simply  as 
historically  exhibited  in  the  days  of  Christ, 
and  without  reference  to  any  new  divine 
power,  or  to  the  spirit  of  their  ancient  Scrip- 
tures ?  There  is  development,  surely,  a 
divine  development, — involving,  however,  an 
effect,  and  necessitating  a  cause,  than  which 
there  could  be  nothing  more  opposed  to  all 
the  ideas  the  rationalist  must  assume  as  the 
elements  of  his  hypothesis. 

And    so,    too,    the    Hindoo   scriptures,    of 
which  our  transcendentalists  talk  so  much  and 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  143 

so  ignorantly,  have  no  meaning,  no  life  out 
of  India.  In  the  West,  they  have  been,  and 
ever  will  be,  but  matters  of  learned  curiosity  ; 
and  even  this  interest  they  fast  lose  the  more 
intimately  we  become  acquainted  with  them. 
It  would  be  impossible,  by  any  "accommoda- 
tions," by  any  associations,  to  make  out  of 
them  a  book  adapted  for  any  Occidental  in- 
fluence, either  moral,  religious,  or  philosophi- 
cal. It  is  fast  becoming  more  and  more  evi- 
dent that  their  only  theological  dogmas  of 
any  religious  power,  or  even  philosophical 
interest,  are  but  the  almost  defaced  remains 
of  ideas  belonging  to  the  old  patriarchal  rev- 
elation of  the  World-Deliverer,  and  which 
are  brought  out  in  all  their  sublimity  in  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  In  all 
other  respects,  in  their  monstrous  mythology, 
in  their  mind-destroying  pantheism,  above  all, 
in  their  revolting  impurity,  they  are  what 
the  depraved  Hindoo  mind  has  made  them, 
and  what  they,  in  their  reaction,  have  made 
the  present  Hindoo  race.     The  same  local, 


144  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

partial  nature  may  be  affirmed,  though  less 
strongly,  of  the  Koran.  It  is  a  far  more 
catholic  book,  however, — that  is,  has  more  of 
a  world-life,  than  the  Hindoo  scriptures  ; 
but  this  comes  solely  from  its  Shemitic  de- 
scent, and  from  its  being  such  a  reflex  of  the 
old  Shemitic  revelation.  It  would  not  be  far 
out  of  the  way  to  regard  the  Koran  as  one 
of  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
from  its  oft-asserted  claim  to  be  the  religion 
of  Abraham,  "  in  wrhom  all  the  families  of 
the  earth  were  to  be  blessed,"  that  this  sub- 
lime poem  of  Mohammed  (for  with  all  its 
falsehoods  it  is  in  truth  a  sublime  production) 
has  its  real  power,  its  wide-spread,  long- 
enduring  hold  in  so  many  parts  of  the  older 
continents.(6)  Still,  to  a  great  extent,  may 
the  same  character  be  applied  to  all  the 
religious  books  of  the  world,  except  that  one 
wmich  proves  its  humanity,  and  so,  its  true 
divinity,  or  the  divine  in  the  human,  by  its 
universality.  Of  all  the  others  it  may  be 
said  that  they  are  local,  partial,   periodical. 


IN"    THE    SCRIPTURES.  145 

Each  has  its  peculiar  phase,  chronological 
and  ethnological,  out  of  which  it  cannot  be 
tran -planted.  The  Bible  alone  makes  disci- 
ples of  every  race.  It  would  be  hard  to 
decide  where  it  had  more  strongly  displayed 
its  subduing  power, — on  the  Asiatic,  the  Af- 
rican, or  the  European  mind.  Descending 
with  the  ages,  and  through  every  phase  of 
humanity,  it  has  met  them  all,  it  has  warred 
with  all,  and  its  uniform  triumph  warrants  the 
induction,  even  aside  from  faith,  that  it  will 
surely  survive  them  all.  Of  such  a  history 
it  is  but  sober  eulogy  if  we  employ  the  lan- 
guage of  that  strange  believer,  Sir  Thomas 
Browne, — "Men's  works  have  an  age  like 
themselves,  and  though  they  outlive  their 
authors,  yet  have  they  a  stint  and  a  period 
to  their  duration.  This  only  is  a  work  too 
hard  for  the  teeth  of  time,  and  cannot  perish 
but  in  the  final  flames  when  all  things  shall 
confess  their  ashes." 

There  is  a  divine  guardianship  of  the  Bible  ; 
so  we    must  hold  as  consistent  believers; — 
7 


H6  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

but  aside  from  this,  there  is  in  the  book  it- 
self a  reason  for  its  tenacious  life.  The 
secret  of  its  lasting  hold  upon  the  human 
mind  may  be  found  in  this  striking  union  of 
the  closest  specialty  with  the  widest  univer- 
sality. Here  we  have  what  may  be  called  the 
paradox  of  the  Scriptures.  Addressed  pri- 
marily to  the  most  separate  as  well  as  the 
most  peculiar  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
(and  one  that  still  maintains  its  separateness 
and  its  peculiarity,  as  a  standing  witness  to 
this  remarkable  divine  economy,)  these  writ- 
ings have  nevertheless  such  a  wonderful 
adaptation  to  all  people,  to  all  ages,  to  all 
individual  men !  There  must  be  something 
in  them  that  goes  far  below  all  outward 
form,  all  outward  dress  of  age  or  nationality, 
something  that  penetrates  the  deepest  de- 
partment, the  most  interior  chamber,  or 
sanctum  sanctorum  of  the  universal  soul. 
They  "try  the  reins;"  "they  reveal  unto 
man  his  thought;"  "they  teach  wisdom  in 
that   hidden    part"    where    each    individual 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  147 

spirit  finds  its  connection,  its  identity,  we 
might  almost  say,  with  the  universal  human- 
ity. Hence  so  concrete,  and  yet  so  abstract. 
It  is  not,  however,  through  logical  language, 
so  called,  but  by  the  very  intensity  of  their 
sense  imagery,  that  they  pierce  through  the 
sense,  as  it  were,  "reaching  even  to  the 
division  of  soul  and  spirit,"  the  dividing  line 
of  yv'/j]  and  Ttvevfia,  and  thus  becoming  "  dis- 
cern ers  of  those  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart"  that  lie  below  the  ordinary  conscious- 
ness, but  which,  when  discovered,  are  recog- 
nized to  be  the  most  intensely  individual,  as 
they  are  the  most  profoundly  generic,  in  the 
human  constitution. 

Hence  it  is  that  no  book  is  so  translatable 
as  the  Bible.  It  runs  with  the  least  difficulty 
into  all  languages,  East  or  West.  "When  it 
fails  to  meet  with  idioms  that  are  perfect 
equivalents,  it  will  always  be  found  that  its 
own  may  be  successfully  transplanted,  and 
that  they  will  grow  with  surprising  freshness 
and  vigor  in  the   new  soil.      Hence    no    so 


148  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ready  a  way  to  enrich  a  language,  even  an 
old  and  copious  language,  as  to  translate  the 
Bible  into  it.  We  are  not  generally  aware 
how  many  of  our  own  most  life-like  idioms 
are  in  fact  orientalisms  thus  introduced  into 
our  remote  Western  world.  The  reason  of 
this  may  be  sought  in  the  seeming  paradox 
before  alluded  to.  It  is  the  " Living  Word"* 
6  Xoyoq  xov  Oeov  £coj/  xai  £veQyi)g,  "the  Word 
of  God,  quick  and  powerful,"  yet  clothed  in 
humanity  ;  and  hence  it  is  so  intensely  human 
because  it  is  -the  divine  in  the  human.  In 
other  words,  it  could  not  have  been  so  hu- 
man had  it  not  also  been  divine.  Only  a 
power  high  above  us  could  have  so  looked 
down  into  the  very  depths  of  our  nature. 
Other  or  pretended  revelations  prove  their 
falsehood  by  their  monstrosity,  by  their  in- 
humanness,  if  we  may  use  such  a  word,  their 
distorted  apprehensions  of  man,  as  well  as 
their  absurd  notions  in  respect  to  God.  In 
their  ambitious  attempts  to  rise  above  the 
human,  they  get  lost  in  a  dreamy  pantheism, 

•Heb.  4:12. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  149 

or  a  grotesque  mythology,  both  of  which, 
while  they  fall  in  with  a  partial  order  of 
thought,  or  a  peculiar  style  of  imagination, 
are  alien  to  the  early  and  natural,  to  the  most 
uniform  and  universal,  thinking  of  the  race. 
In  the  Bible,  on  the  other  hand,  even  the  su- 
pernatural— we  may  say  it  without  a  paradox 
— is  most  natural.  It  is  in  such  true  keeping 
with  the  times,  with  the  events  and  doctrines 
it  attests,  with  all  the  surrounding  historical 
circumstances* as  they  are  narrated,  that  we 
almost  lose  the  feeling  of  the  supernatural 
in  the  admirable  harmony  and  consistency  of 
the  ideas  and  scenes  presented.  It  seems  to 
be  just  what  might  have  been  expected  ;  it 
would  be  strange  that  it  should  be  otherwise  ; 
the  marvellous  here  is  the  presumptive,  the 
extraordinary  becomes  the  easy  of  belief. 
The  supernatural  assumes  the  familiar  ap- 
pearance of  the  natural,  and  God's  comiug 
down  to  us,  and  speaking  to  us,  seem  less 
incredible  than  that  far-off  silence  which, 
though  so  unbroken  for  our  sense,  is  so  per- 
plexing and  unaccountable  to  our  reason. 


CHAPTER    X. 

The  Bible  Supernatural  —  Illustrations  —  The  Supernatural  at 
Sinai  —  The  Burning  Bush  —  Moses  at  the  Red  Sea  —  Compare 
these  with  the  Hindoo,  Greek  and  Scandinavian  Myths  —  The 
Moral  Grandeur  —  Elijah  the  Tishbite  —  The  very  Natural  rising 
into  the  Supernatural  —  The  Supernatural  in  the  Life  of  Christ 
—  Its  constant  Indwelling  Presence  —  More  Impressive  than  any 
outward  Miraculous  Manifestation — "Thou  art  the  Christ  the 
Son  of  the  Living  God"  —  Commands  to  conceal  the  Supernatu- 
ral Power  —  The  Transfiguration  —  Christ  Walking  on  the  Sea  — 
Was  it  meant  for  a  Display?  —  Or  was  it  the  true  Outgoing  of  an 
Ecstatic  Spiritual  Condition?  —  Mark  6:48,  "He  would  have 
passed  them  by"  — It  followed  a  Night  of  Prayer—  Was  this  an 
Isolated  Case  ?  —  The  Scriptures  give  us  but  Glimpses  even  of 
Christ's  Natural  Life. 

The  thought  presented  in  the  close  of  the 
preceding  chapter  receives  its  illustrations 
in  almost  every  part  of  the  Scriptures.  Its 
importance  demands  that  they  should  be 
given  at  some  length,  although  it  may  re- 
quire for  that  purpose  many  consecutive 
pages.     Let  us  commence  with  the  stupen- 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  151 

dous  exhibition  that  was  made  on  Sinai. 
Taken  by  itself  it  might  seem  utterly  incredi- 
ble, although  its  superhuman  grandeur  would 
ever  prevent  its  association  with  the  myths  of 
any  other  religion.  Such  a  breach  in  nature, 
we  say,  surpasses  belief  when  viewed  alone. 
But  when  we  have  read  all  that  precedes, 
when  we  have  followed  on  in  that  flow  of 
events,  ever  deepening  in  the  intensity  of  its 
interest,  ever  taking  in  a  wider  field  of  vision, 
ever  rising  to  a  loftier  region  of  thought, 
when  the  mind  has  thus  become  filled  with 
the  utmost  power  of  the  attending  associa- 
tions, when  it  is  lifted  up  to  the  spiritual  alti- 
tude of  the  scene,  then  all  things  else  assume 
a  like  elevation  ;  the  darkness  and  the  flames, 
the  fearful  thunderings,  the  quaking  earth, 
the  "  sound  of  the  trumpet  waxing  long  and 
loud,"  even  the  awful  voice,  become  consistent 
and  probable  events  ;  yea,  they  would  even 
seem  to  be  natural  events.  When,  moreover, 
the  thought  is  carried  onward  to  the  remote 
historical    consequences    of    that    great    an- 


152  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

nouncement  of  a  law  from  heaven,  when  we 
take  into  view  the  influence  it  lias  exercised 
and  still  exercises  in  our  world,  then  it  is  that 
the  wonder  ceases — we  were  going  to  say. — 
but  no,  the  grandeur,  the  mystery,  the  sur- 
passing marvellousness.  remain  undiminished : 
it  is  the  incredibility  that  has  vanished  ;  for 
the  marvellous,  the  extraordinary,  may  be 
credible,  yea,  under  certain  conditions,  the 
most  credible  of  supposed  occurrences.  When 
the  soul  is  thus  filled  with  both  the  emotion  and 
the  reason  of  the  scene,  it  seems  to  us  just 
the  right  interposition,  at  the  right  time,  in 
the  right  way,  and  for  the  most  rational  ends. 
God  proclaiming  a  law  to  a  people  chosen  as 
the  conservators  of  the  highest  religious 
truth  ;  what  more  reasonable  than  this  ?  His 
accompanying  that  proclamation  by  an  out- 
ward attesting  majesty  as  shown  in  corres- 
ponding phenomena  of  the  outward  physical 
world  ;  what  in  itself  more  credible  ?  Would 
it  not,  on  the  other  hand,  be  something 
strange  to  think  of,  that  a  world   should  be 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  153 

created,  a  race  of  intelligent  and  religious 
beings  brought  into  existence,  and  that  race 
]3ass  away  without  any  such  communication 
from  its  unseen  maker,  without  any  exhibition 
of  unearthly  glory  to  cast  a  ray  upon  its  be- 
wildering night  of  nature,  or  to  relieve  the 
dreary  materiality  of  its  long  unvaried  physi- 
cal continuance  ?  There  are  two  positions 
which  are  out  of  harmony  both  for  the  rea- 
son and  the  imagination  :  the  astoundingly 
supernatural  in  the  creation  of  man,  the  un- 
broken natural,  or  the  total  absence  of  the 
superhuman,  in  all  God's  dealings  with  him 
since.  One  or  the  other  of  these  must  be 
given  up.  The  human  race  is  uncreated,  or 
He  who  made  it  can  speak  to  it,  and  does 
sometimes  speak  to  it.  Nature  is  from  eter- 
nity, or  it  may  be  interrupted,  and  has  been 
interrupted,  in  time.  The  rejection  of  the 
supernatural  all  the  way  up  to  creation,  is 
the  rejection  of  creation  itself,  both  for  man 
and  the  world.  It  is  well  for  the  truth,  that 
in  these  latter  days  of  keen  inquiry,  all   un- 


154:  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

tenable  middle  grounds  are  clearing  up,  and 
the  mind  is  being  brought  face  to  face  with 
sharp  and  decisive  issues. 

But  to  proceed  with  our  illustrations  ;  there 
is,  perhaps,  nothing  in  the  Scriptures  that 
presents  more  clearly  the  holy,  religious 
supernatural  in  distinction  from  what  may  be 
called  the  monstrous,  or  the  legendary,  than 
that  wondrous  sight  of  the  desert,  "  the 
bush  that  burned  with  fire  and  was  not  con- 
sumed." On  the  scale  of  magnitude  and 
outward  force  it  is  surpassed  by  the  convul- 
sions of  nature  that  took  place  in  the  deluge, 
or  that  attended  the  descent  of  God  upon 
Sinai  ;  but  for  silent  grandeur  there  is  noth- 
ing beyond  it  in  the  Bible.  So  noiseless  and 
motionless  the  scene,  so  calm  in  its  impres- 
siveness, — it  would  seem,  in  outward  display, 
hardly  to  rise  above  the  natural,  the  strange 
natural,  we  may  say,  that  belonged  to  that 
remarkable  place.  The  rationalist  might, 
with  some  plausibility,  attempt  to  explain  it 
as  a  mirage  of  the  desert.     It  is  its  unearth- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  155 

liness,  its  ghostliness,  if  we  could  keep  the 
full  power  of  that  old  word,  that  so  deeply 
affects  the  mind  ;  like  "the  still  small  voice" 
that  came  to  Elijah,  or  like  Christ  walking 
on  the  nightly  waters  when  "the  disciples 
cried  out  for  fear,  thinking  that  they  had  seen 
a  spirit."  Such  was  the  effect  upon  the  mind 
of  Moses.  The  prophet's  shepherd  life  had 
shown  him  many  weird  aspects  of  nature  in 
that  wild  region  ;  he  had  felt  the  awe  of  that 
lonely  spot,  held  sacred  and  oracular,  even 
then,  from  a  long  antiquity .(T)  But  this  ap- 
pearance had  in  it  more  of  the  religio  loci  than 
he  had  ever  felt  before.  "And  Moses  said, 
I  will  turn  aside  now  and  see  this  great  sight  " 
mn  ^an  n»i5an,  visionem  hanc  magnam,  l '  why 
it  is  the  bush  is  not  burned.  And  the  Lord 
said  unto  him,  come  not  nigh,  put  off  thy 
shoe  from  thy  foot,  for  the  place  whereon 
thou  standest  is  holy  ground."  The  poetic 
interest  is,  indeed,  of  the  highest  order  ; 
there  is  a  sublime  beauty  in  the  pictured 
scene  that  might  vividly  impress  the  imagina- 


156  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

tion  i  f  the  reader,  though  without  necessarily 
producing  belief.  But  when  there  comes 
forth  from  the  mysterious  flame  that  an- 
nouncement of  the  Eternal,  "I  am  that  I 
am," — I  am  Jehovah, — "  this  is  my  name,  and 
this  my  memorial  to  all  generations,"  how 
perfect  is  felt  to  be  the  harmony  between  the 
supernatural  and  the  transcending  revelation 
of  which  it  was  made  the  sign.  We  allude 
not  here  to  the  mystical  or  typical,  which 
some,  perhaps,  would  find  in  the  special  form 
of  this  representation  ;  it  is  enough  for  our 
present  view  that  we  simply  regard  it  in  its 
credibility  as  an  act  above  nature,  employed 
as  a  witness  of  the  holiest  spiritual  truth. 

Again  :  When  Moses  "  stretches  out  his 
hand  over  the  sea,"  when  he  says  unto  the 
people,  "Fear  ye  not,  stand  still  and  behold 
the  salvation  of  the  Lord,"  we  expect  the 
retiring  of  the  waters  ;  the  event  as  narrated 
does  not  surprise  us  even  by  its  strangeness — 
it  is  in  such  perfect  unison  with  the  sustained 
grandeur  of  all   the  acts  and  all  the  divine 


IX    THE    SCRIPTURES.  157 

teachings  that  precede  and  follow  it.  But, 
says  the  objector,  these  stories  do  not  sur- 
prise us  because  they  are  in  our  Scriptures, 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as 
full  of  the  marvellous  :  Has  not  every  nation 
had  its  supernatural  ?  were  not  the  heathen 
myths  also  believed,  and  are  they  not  still 
believed  ?  It  is,  indeed,  true,  that  every 
nation  has  had  its  supernatural  ;  but  this 
only  shows  how  deeply  the  tendency  to  be- 
lieve it,  and  to  regard  it  as  probable  in  cer- 
tain conditions,  has  its  ground  in  the  human 
soul.  The  general  answer  meets  broadly, 
but  conclusively,  the  general  objection.  In 
reply  to  the  more  special  parallel  it  might  be 
said,  that  these  heathen  myths  were  not  be- 
lieved as  the  Bible  narrations  are  credited  ; 
they  are  not  believed  in  the  same  way,  they 
are  not  believed  by  the  same  class  of  minds, 
they  do  not  thus  retain  their  hold  upon  the 
most  cultivated,  the  most  profound,  as  well 
as  the  most  religious  thinkers  of  past  and 
present  ages.    But  there  is  an  easier,  as  well 


158  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

as  more  conclusive  reply.  We  take  the  most 
direct  and  promptly  decided  issue.  The  cases 
are  utterly  unlike  in  their  ground  statements. 
There  is  no  resemblance  between  such  narra- 
tions as  these  we  have  cited  from  the  Bible, 
and  the  deformed  Hindoo,  Greek,  or  Scandi- 
navian "myths"  that  some  would  compare 
with  them.  The  easy  unexamined  assumption 
of  such  similarity  confounds  the  unthinking 
and  the  unlearned  ;  but  all  investigation 
proves  that  the  difference  is  immense,  total, 
we  might  say,  in  every  aspect.  Would  we 
see  this  resemblance,  place  them  side  by  side. 
As  Jehovah  to  Thor,  as  the  Holy  One  of  the 
Prophets  to  Vishnu,  as  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  to 
Zeus,  as  the  Hebrew  Prophecy  to  the 
Grecian  Epic,  as  the  Psalms  of  David  to  the 
Odes  of  Pindar,  as  Moses  to  Minos,  as  that 
unique  drama  in  which  powers  earthly  and 
unearthly  are  striving  for  the  integrity  of 
Job  to  the  myths  of  the  JEschylean  tragedy, 
as  the  idea  of  "Covenant"  to  the  idea  of 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  159 

Fate,  as  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  to  the  idea  of 
a  Hercules,  as  the  Olympic  games  to  the 
11  Fight  of  Faith,"  so  is  the  sublime  super- 
natural of  the  Bible  to  the  monstrous,  im- 
pure, or  merely  fanciful  conceptions  of  the 
heathen.  The  difference  is  every  where, — 
in  the  essential  reason,  in  the  inward  spirit, 
in  the  outward  form.  He  that  hath  eyes  to 
see  must  see  it ;  he  that  hath  a  soul  to  feel 
must  understand  it.  We  could  ask  no 
higher  earthly  evidence  of  the  unearthliness 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures  than  just  this 
parallel.  They  are  not  merely  arbitrarily 
selected  points.  As  in  the  examples  cited, 
so  is  it  with  the  supernatural  of  the  Bible 
every  where.  It  is  never  monstrous,  gro- 
tesque, legendary,  unmeaning,  fanciful,  but 
ever  dignified,  solemn,  pure,  holy,  in  strictest 
keeping  with  every  accompanying  emotion, 
and  so  preserving  that  marvellous  air  of  fact, 
that  feeling  of  truthfulness,  that  sober  im- 
pression of  reality,  that  comes  from  the  con- 
sistent however  high  its  sphere,  and  is,  there- 


160  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

fore,  ever  present,  in  the  most  astounding  as 
in  the  most  ordinary  narrations  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

A  similar  feeling  comes  over  us  as  we  read 
the  story  of  that  lone,  fearful  man,  Elijah  the 
Tishbite  ?  How  terrific  in  its  justice,  yet 
how  majestic  in  its  consistency,  is  the  divine 
interposition  against  the  idolatrous  priests, 
when  the  worship  of  the  true  God  was  dying 
out  in  Israel,  and  but  few  were  known  as  re- 
maining who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal !  Even  we  had  a  religious  interest  in 
that  remote  scene.  The  natural  had  come 
to  such  a  pass  as  to  demand  the  interven- 
tion of  the  supernatural.  The  "Lord  must 
come  forth  from  the  hiding-place  of  his 
power,"  or  the  light  goes  out  from  the  only 
altar  that  was  to  be  kept  ever  burning  for 
the  ages  and  generations  to  come.  But 
throughout  the  whole  history  of  this  un- 
earthly Seer,  what  interests  us  in  a  most  pe- 
culiar manner  is  the  striking  harmony  of  the 
highest  miraculous  with  the  simplicity  and 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  161 

truthfulness  of  the  ordinary  life.  What  a 
charm  they  have  for  us,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  how  morally  impressive  these  life-like 
pictures  of  the  ancient  Israel !  The  Prophet's 
sojourn  "  by  the  brook  Cherith  that  is  before 
Jordan,"  his  journey  to  "  Sarepta,  a  city 
which  is  near  unto  Sidon,"  the  widow's  un- 
failing cruise  of  oil,  long  since  passed  into  a 
proverbial  saying  to  denote  the  unfailing 
providence  of  God,  that  graphic  scene  where 
Elijah  sends  his  servant  to  watch  from  the 
top  of  Carmel  the  signals  of  the  coming  rain, 
the  repose  under  the  juniper  tree,  the 
heaven-provided  sustenance,  the  Lord's  talk- 
ing with  the  Prophet  at  the  cave  in  Horeb, 
the  familiar  yet  startling  question,  "Where 
art  thou,  Elijah  ?  how  life-like  is  it  all !  how 
truth-like  in  the  midst  of  the  most  astound- 
ingly  marvellous,  how  minute  in  circumstan- 
tial fact,  and  yet,  with  no  loss  of  dignity,  no 
abatement  of  ever-thrilling  awe  !  And  then, 
that  pure  religious  teaching  present  in  every 
act !  it  is  this  that  gives  it  such  a  moral  con- 


162  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

sistency,  taking  away  its  incredibility,  and 
making  it  so  unlike  the  unmeaning  and  im- 
pure wonders  of  a  false  religion. 

Thus,  especially,  does  that  most  remark- 
able scene  in  Horeb  rise  to  the  very  height 
of  the  natural  as  well  as  the  sublime.  It  is 
just  what  we  are  led  to  expect, — Deity  so 
holding  converse  with  his  faithful  servant, 
the  ever-present  One  thus  talking  in  the 
solitude  of  nature  to  the  man  who,  for  his 
sake,  and  for  his  worship's  sake,  had  fled 
from  the  world  !  If  it  is  not  so  with  us  in  our 
own  personal  experience,  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  there  must  be  a  lack  of  that  re- 
ligious intercourse,  that  personal  nearness  to 
God,  which  would  make  it  seem  as  probable 
as  it  is  in  itself  both  rational  and  true.  But 
how  easy,  we  may  say,  are  such  associations 
of  thought  and  feeling  in  connection  with 
these  striking  narratives.  The  two  depart- 
ments of  the  world  seem  to  blend  together. 
In  its  association  with  the  deeply  and  fear- 
fully religious,   the    natural   acquires  a  new 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  163 

dignity  ;  it  seems  to  rise  up  into  the  region 
of  the  supernatural.  On  the  awful  summit 
of  Horeb  nature  becomes  divine  ;  and  we 
can  hardly  tell  which  has  most  to  impress 
the  soul, — the  "  fire,  the  wind,  the  earth- 
quake," or  the  still  small  voice  that  attests 
the  near  presence  of  the  higher  power.  We 
are  lifted  up  to  a  plane  of  thought  where 
much  becomes  credible  that  would  altogether 
transcend  belief  if  viewed  from  the  lower 
horizon  of  the  soul.  It  is  just  because  the 
constant  reading  of  the  Scriptures  produces 
this  elevation  of  thought,  that  its  miraculous 
retains  that  hold  upon  the  Christian  faith 
which  the  sceptic  cannot  understand. 

But  it  is  in  the  history  of  Christ  that  the 
idea  on  which  we  are  dwelling  receives  its 
most  powerful  verification.  A  life  so  un- 
earthly, so  heavenly,  so  spiritual,  so  tran- 
scending nature,  so  full  of  a  divine  power 
manifesting  itself  in  every  word  and  act,  so 
spent  in  nights  of  prayer,  and  days  of  sub- 
limest   teaching !    how    out   of   all   keeping 


164  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

does  it  seem,  that  to  a  state  so  earth- tran- 
scending in  its  spirituality,  there  should  be  no 
corresponding  witness  of  the  supernatural ! 
There  has  ever  been  on  the  earth  some  feel- 
ing of  this  kind  in  respect  to  men  esteemed 
superlatively  holy ;  but  these  have  been 
saints  just  so  far  as  they  followed  Christ,  or 
were  in  Christ,  to  use  those  Scripture  words 
to  which  nothing  else  in  language  is  equiva- 
lent. Christ  was  the  original  power,  the 
fountain  of  all  earthly  holiness  ;  He  "  was 
the  Life,"  the  new  transcending  life,  as  it 
"came  forth  from  the  Father  into  the 
world."  As  we  read  this  life — in  its  natural 
or  uniniraculous  aspects  we  now  mean — we 
recognize  the  association  of  the  superhuman 
as  we  do  not  in  other  cases.  There  is  a 
demand  for  its  presence,  as  not  only  a  fitting 
but  an  indispensable  accompaniment.  The 
idea  cannot  be  complete  without  it.  Such 
power  over  the  soul  !  it  must  extend  to  the 
body  and  the  physical  life  ;  the  absence  of 
this  healing  energy  would    have    been    the 


IN    THE    SCKIPTUEES.  165 

difficulty  to  be  explained,  the  feature  in  the 
narrative  not  easy  of  belief.  Such  a  life  and 
such  a  death  !  the  resurrection  is  the  only 
appropriate  sequence  of  a  career  on  earth, 
yet  so  unearthly  ;  the  ascension  into  heaven 
is  the  only  appropriate  finale  to  a  drama  so 
heavenly  and  divine. 

The  serious  reader  cannot  help  feeling  that 
in  the  life  of  Christ,  as  given  to  us  by  the 
Evangelists,  there  is  something  more  than  a 
supernatural  gift,  or  the  occasional  power  of 
working  miracles,  as  something  imparted 
from  without,  or  only  exercised  by  himself 
through  special  effort  in  each  particular  case. 
We  are  impressed,  rather,  with  the  idea  of 
the  constant  supernatural,  as  a  veiled  power, 
not  so  much  requiring  an  effort  for  its  mani- 
festation as  a  restraint  to  prevent  it  beaming 
forth  before  unholy  eyes  that  could  not  bear, 
or  might  profane,  the  sight.  In  that  earthly 
tabernacle  there  was  the  constant  dwelling  of 
the  Shekinah,  more  powerfully  present  when 
alone,  perhaps,  or  with  a  few  chosen  ones  of 


1G6  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

assimilated  spiritual  temperament,  than  in 
the  city  or  the  rural  crowd.  Such  must  have 
been  the  feeling  of  the  more  devout  souls 
admitted  to  nearest  intercourse.  "  Thou  art 
the  Christ  the  Son  of  the  Living  God,"  is  an 
exclamation  called  out  more  by  the  over- 
powering effect  of  this  constant  presence, 
than  by  any  great  public  displays  of  miracu- 
lous power.  It  is  this,  more  than  anything 
else,  that  is  attested  by  the  holy  Apostle 
John  in  the  beginning  of  his  First  Epistle — 
"  That  which  was  from  the  beginning,  which 
we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with  our 
eyes,  which  our  hands  have  handled  of  the 
Word  of  Life  ;  for  the  Life  was  manifested 
and  we  saw  it,  and  we  testify,  and  tell  unto 
you  of  that  Eternal  Life,  which  was  with  the 
Father  and  was  manifested  unto  us."  The 
reference  is  not  so  much  to  striking  outward 
displays  as  to  the  constant  spiritual  efful- 
gence ever  beaming  on  the  soul  of  the 
spiritual  disciple,  and  sometimes,  perhaps 
even  to  the  eye  of  sense,  surrounding  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  167 

person  of  Christ  with  an  outward  glory. 
From  the  inward  supernatural,  as  from  a 
never  intermitting  fountain,  proceeded  the 
outward  miracle-working  power,  as  exhibited 
in  distinct  acts.  There  is,  at  times,  strong 
evidence  of  an  effort  to  veil  even  these  from 
public  knowledge.  Again  and  again  are 
persons  charged  "to  tell  no  man  what  they 
had  seen  and  heard."  As  the  thought  can- 
not be  for  a  moment  entertained  that  this  was 
either  affectation  or  policy,  it  can  be  explain- 
ed on  no  other  ground  than  the  one  here 
taken.  Thus,  too,  are  we  told  of  a  constant 
virtue  dwelling  in  the  Saviour's  person  ;  as 
in  the  story  of  the  woman  who  "touched  the 
hem  of  His  garment  that  she  might  be  heal- 
ed." Her  spiritual  state,  that  is,  her  pure 
faith,  brought  her  in  a  living  relation  to  this 
power  so  veiled  to  the  unbelieving  or  merely 
curious  multitude.  It  was  not  mere  super- 
stition on  her  part,  as  some  would  explain  it, 
or  a  false  feeling,  though  mingled  with  some 
degree  of  a  right  faith.     Our  Saviour  does 


168  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

himself  sanction  her  thought  when  he  says 
(Luke  8  :  46),  "For  I  know  that  power 
(dvvctfiiig)  hath  gone  forth  from  me" — not 
failed,  certainly,  or  lost,  but  spoken  of  as 
having  flowed  forth  from  himself  to  some 
spiritual  recipient.  We  have  a  Protestant 
fear  of  the  Romish  abuse  of  this  view  in  their 
doctrine  of  relics,  and  of  a  wonder-working 
agency  proceeding  from  the  bodies  of  the 
saints  ;  but  this  fear  should  not  blind  us  to 
the  clear  import  of  such  plain  Scriptures. 
The  Romanists  ascribe  it  to  dead  bodies,  to 
the  dead  bodies  of  men  who  when  living  had 
an  imperfect  personal  righteousness  ;  but  here 
was  the  Life  itself.  It  is  credible,  it  is  even 
to  be  expected  that  the  supernatural  should 
shine  out  through  a  natural  so  elevated 
above  the  ordinary  condition  of  humanity, — 
a  natural,  human  indeed  to  its  utmost  core, 
and  yet  so  different  from  that  of  the  fallen 
world  around  it. 

There  is  a  deep  mystery  even  in  our  com- 
mon physical   energy.     The  strength  of  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  169 

body  is,  in  its  ultimate  resolution,  a  power 
of  the  quiescent  spirit.  Activity,  force,  yea, 
even,  in  some  sense,  mot  us,  or  outgoing 
energy,  are  attributes  of  soul,  even  when  at 
rest,  as  much  as  thought,  or  will,  or  emotion. 
The  present  bodity  organization,  instead  of 
a  necessary  aid,  may  be,  in  fact,  a  limiting, 
a  restraint  upon  a  tremendous  power,  that 
needs  to  be  confined  as  long  as  it  is  joined  to 
a  selfish  or  unholy  will,  even  as  we  chain 
the  madman  in  his  cell.  Sometimes,  even 
in  common  life,  there  are  fearful  exhibitions 
of  the  loosening  of  these  material  bonds.  In 
the  last  stages  of  bodily  weakness,  appar- 
ently, some  delirium  of  the  soul,  if  we  may 
call  it  such,  brings  out  a  power  of  nerve  and 
muscle  irresistible  to  any  ordinary  strength, 
inexplicable  to  any  ordinary  physiological 
knowledge.  The  cases,  indeed,  are  vastly  dif- 
ferent, and  yet  there  is  some  analogy.  Such 
views  of  the  common  organism  do  not  at  all  ac- 
count for  the  higher  power  that  may  dwell  in 
a  perfectly  holy  spirituality  ;  but  they  render 
8 


170  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

it  credible  ;  they  prepare  us  to  believe  in  it, 
yea,  to  feel  it  as  a  spiritual  dissonance  if  there 
be  wholly  lacking  some  high  command  of 
nature  in  connection  with  a  perfect  faith  and 
a  holy  will  ever  in  harmony  with  the  divine. 
It  is  the  Scriptures,  however,  that  must 
furnish  our  only  reliable  ground  of  argument 
on  this  mysterious  subject ;  and  here  we  find 
no  small  proof  of  such  a  constant  indwelling 
glory  of  the  supernatural  as  distinguished 
from  an  occasional  miraculous  gift.  In  cer- 
tain passages  there  is  the  strongest  expres- 
sion of  Christ's  unwillingness  to  gratify 
curiosity  by  the  display  of  an  outward  sign  ; 
in  others  there  is  shown  an  evident  reluc- 
tance to  have  this  holy  influence  the  subject 
of  any  profane  or  gossiping  rumor.  But 
again,  he  exhibits  it  of  his  own  accord  to 
chosen  disciples,  and  then  it  has  the  appear- 
ance of  a  manifestation,  to  favored  souls,  of 
a  power  and  a  spiritual  glory  ever  more  truly 
present  in  his  retired  than  in  his  public  life. 
Such  is  the  impression  left  upon  the  mind  by 


IN    THE    SCRIPTUKES.  171 

the  account  of  the  Transfiguration.  "Jesus 
taketh  Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  into  a 
high  mountain  apart  (xcct  idiav^).  And  he 
was  changed,"  transformed  (iieTajuLOQcpdd&r]*) 
before  them."  The  fJLOQyr\  dovlov*  could  no 
longer  hide  the  fioqcpi]  Otov  that  was  com- 
monly veiled  beneath  it.  "  And  his  face 
shone  as  the  sun.  and  his  raiment  became 
white  as  the  light."  It  was  that  same  ap- 
pearance then,  which  seems  to  have  become 
the  permanent  manifestation  of  his  glory  in 
all  earthly  visits  after  his  ascension.  It  was 
thus  that  he  shone  in  the  vision  of  Patmos. 
It  was  in  such  a  robe  of  light  that  he  made 
himself  visible  to  Paul  on  his  way  to  Damas- 
cus. It  could  not  have  been  merely  assumed 
for  the  occasion.  It  was  the  glory  that  he 
ever  had,  his  constant  glory,  once  veiled,  but 
then  without  a  shade.  u  He  was  transform- 
ed before  them:1  It  is  the  fact  of  their 
presence  on  which,  in  reading,  we  must  lay 

*  "  The  form  of  a  servant."—"  The  form  of  God."— 
Phil.  2  :  6,  7. 


172  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  emphasis  ;  this  glorious  manifestation, 
not  new  to  Christ,  not  unusual,  perhaps,  in 
his  earthly  state,  they  for  once  are  permitted 
to  behold.  Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  are 
selected  to  witness  one  instance  of  the 
Saviour's  intercourse,  it  may  be  his  frequent 
intercourse,  with  celestial  beings  and  the 
holy  departed.  The  glory  of  Tabor  may 
have  been  often  with  him  in  his  rapt  de- 
votional hours, — a  glory  known  to  himself 
and  seen  by  heavenly  eyes.  Often  may  He 
have  talked  with  Moses  and  Elias,  often 
11  been  seen  of  angels,"  often  had  around  him 
11  voices  from  the  excellent  glory,"  often  heard 
the  chanting  of  the  response,  "This  is  my 
beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased." 
Could  we  have  the  history  of  Christ  as  written 
from  the  celestial  side,  his  spiritual  life  as  it 
may  one  day,  perhaps,  be  revealed  to  us  in 
the  Gospels  of  Eternity,  it  might  be  seen 
that  there  were,  indeed,  many  such  heavenly 
visitations,  with  their  heavenly  messages,  at- 
tendant on  his  nights  of  prayer  and  days  of 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  17^ 

holy  meditation  on  the  mountain  top  or  in 
the  desert  waste. 

Something,  too,  of  the  same  feeling  comes 
over  us  as  we  read  the  account  of  Christ 
walking  on  the  waters  :  "  And  in  the  fourth 
watch  of  the  night  Jesus  came  to  them  walk- 
ing on  the  sea,"  TteQmatcbv,  or,  as  he  was 
walking  on  the  sea.  Not  with  philological 
conclusiveness,  perhaps,  yet  still  quite  strong- 
ly, does  the  participle  here  suggest  the 
thought  of  usual  or  frequent  action,  of  which 
this  was  one  example,  striking,  chiefly  be- 
cause of  being  the  one,  the  only  one,  that 
was  witnessed  by  the  disciples.  We  want  to 
give  the  word  the  same  rendering,  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  take  the 
thought  in  the  same  way  as  it  comes  to  the 
mind  in  Matt.  4.  18:  "And  as  Jesus  was 
walking  by  the  sea  of  Galilee  he  saw  two 
brethren."  It  was  not  the  only  walk  he  had 
ever  taken  by  the  shore  of  that  oft-frequent- 
ed lake  ;  the  impression  is  rather  the  con- 
trary, and  that,  too,  as  derived  from  the  very 


174  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

form  and  force  of  the  word,  the  same  in  both 
these  examples.  On  one  of  these  occasions, 
i '  he  saw  two  brethren."  So  here,  "In  the 
fourth  watch  came  Jesus  unto  them  as  he 
was  walking  on  the  sea."  Was  this  a  mere 
wonder-making?  Was  it  done  to  frighten 
those  timid  men  ?  or  was  it  needed,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  other  miracles,  for  the  confirming 
of  their  faith  ?  There  is  no  evidence  that 
he  designed  to  meet  them  there  for  any  such 
purpose.  Indeed,  the  contrary  is  quite 
clearly  intimated  in  the  parallel  passage 
(Mark  6  :  48),  x«l  rfizkz  nctQe'k&Elv  avtovg, 
"He  would  have  passed  them  by,"  or,  "It 
was  in  his  mind  to  pass  them  by,"  as  it  may 
be  truly  rendered  with  a  clearness  and 
simplicity  in  strange  contrast  with  the  diffi- 
culties that  a  contrary  assumption  has 
caused  commentators  to  find  in  this  most 
plain  }'et  significant  passage.  But  why 
came  he  at  that  hour  walking  on  the 
waters  ?  Elsewhere,  as  in  Job  9  :  8,  it 
is  presented  as  a  peculiar  power  of  Deity, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  175 

"He  who  walketh  upon  the  heights,  or  high 
places  of  the  sea."  It  was  the  sublime, 
mysterious,  spiritual  act  of  a  soul  in  a  highly 
rapt  or  supernatural  state.  We  might  as 
well  ask,  Why  went  he  up  in  the  mountain 
apart  ?  Why,  even  in  the  days  of  his  child- 
hood, did  he  tarry  alone  by  himself  when 
11  friends  were  seeking  him  sorrowing  !"  No 
answer  can  be  given  or  imagined  in  either 
case,  that  does  not  refer  us  to  the  Redeemer's 
own  subjective  state.  Why  walking  thus  at 
that  deep  time  of  night  over  the  wild  and 
lonely  waves  ?  It  was  the  unearthly  act  of 
one  filled  with  unearthly  thoughts,  and  seek- 
ing a  correspondence  to  them  in  the  more 
unearthly,  or,  as  we  might  even  call  them, 
supernatural  aspects  of  the  natural  world. 
If  the  answer  cannot  well  be  given  in  any- 
thing out  of  himself,  why  should  we  fear  to 
say  that  it  was  a  rapt  physical  state,  in  har- 
mony with  an  elevated  spiritual  frame  that 
demanded  it  as  its  fitting  outward   action? 


176  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

The  ecstasy  of  the  soul  lifts  up  the  body. 
There  is  something  of  this  in  the  mere  earthly 
human  experience.  There  is  a  spiritual  con- 
dition that  seems  comparatively,  if  not  abso- 
lutely, to  loosen  the  power  of  gravity,  to  set 
volition  free,  and  release  even  the  flesh  from 
the  hold  of  earthly  bonds.  How  much  more 
of  this  etherial  soaring  must  there  have 
been  in  the  ecstasies  of  Jesus?  In  the  human 
spiritual  power,  as  known  to  us,  there  is, 
indeed,,  nothing  that  can  be  strictly  compared 
with  it  ;  and  yet  there  is  enough  to  render 
credible  such  an  absolute  triumph  over  mat- 
ter in  the  case  of  one  so  holy  and  so  heavenly 
as  Christ.  There  is  an  exquisite  harmony  of 
thought  in  regarding  the  purer  etherial  ele- 
ment as  the  appropriate  medium,  and  the 
undulating  waters  as  the  fitting  pediment 
of  one  so  lifted  up  above  the  grossness  and 
earthliness  of  the  common  humanity. 

The  writer  would  be  cautious  here.  On 
such  a  subject  there  is  no  safety  in  any  specu- 
lations unless  they  keep  near  to  the  Scrip- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  177 

tures  and  their  fairly  suggested  range  of 
thought.  On  this  account  we  may  feel  the 
more  confidence  in  noting  the  remarkable 
connection  of  the  passage.  Thus,  we  are 
told  in  the  verse  before,  "  And  when  Jesus 
had  sent  away  the  multitude  he  went  up  the 
mountain  apart  by  himself  to  pray,  and 
when  it  was  evening  he  was  there  alone." 
It  was  in  the  fourth  watch  of  the  night  thus 
spent  that  Christ  went  forth  in  his  ecstatic 
walk  upon  the  sea.  The  coincidence  could 
not  have  been  a  casual  one  ;  the  inspired 
writer  could  not  have  so  regarded  it :  with 
all  reverence,  then,  may  the  reader  hold  the 
belief  that  the  supernatural  bodily  state  was 
not  so  much  a  sign,  or  attesting  miracle,  as 
the  harmonious  accompaniment  to  the  rapt 
devotion  of  the  preceding  hours.  Why 
should  not  the  supposition  be  entertained 
that  Christ  may  have  often  thus  walked  upon 
the  waters  ?  Of  his  ordinary  or  natural  life, 
the  Scriptures  give  us  but  glimpses  ;  how 
much  more,  then,  of  his  extraordinary  or 
8* 


178  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

supernatural  being  may  we  regard  as  kept 
beneath  the  vail. 

We  think  there  is  no  irreverence  in  such 
thoughts.  At  all  events,  without  any  special 
reasoning  about  spiritual  and  physical  con- 
ditions, there  is  in  Scripture  itself  good  evi- 
dence that  the  human  nature  in  Christ  was 
ever  in  this  connection  with  the  supernatural, 
and  that  the  special  miraculous  acts  were 
unveilings  of  a  constant  hidden  power,  rather 
than  special  enablings  or  special  efforts  in 
each  particular  case.  Christ's  own  words 
convey  this  thought — "He  is  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  life."  It  is  the  fair  import  of 
the  Scriptural  language.  Even  when  veiled 
in  human  flesh,  he  is  still  the  anavyaoiia, 
the  brightness  of  the  Father,  the  express 
image  of  his  hypostasis.  "  We  beheld  his 
glory,"  says  John,  "  the  glory  as  of  the  Only 
Begotten,  full  of  grace  and  truth."  The 
humanity,  too,  is  a  true  humanity  ;  no  one 
was  ever  more  perfectly  human  ;  and  yet  so 
wondrous  is  he,  even  in  his  manhood,  that 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  179 

it  forces  the  idea  of  the  superhuman  and  the 
supernatural  as  not  only  the  causal  explana- 
tion of  such  an  existence,  but  its  own  fitting, 
yea,  necessary  complement. 


CHAPTER     XI 


The  Natural  of  the  Scriptures  —  A  Proof  of  the  Super- 
natural —  Illustrations  —  The  Antediluvian  "World  —  Its  Giant 
Power  of  Crime  —  The  Patriarchal  Life  —  Its  Simple  Ethics  and 
Theology  —  Its  "Faith  Counted  for  Righteousness"  —  How  far 
from  the  Cloudy  Pantheistic  Ideas  —  The  Xth  of  Genesis  and  it 

I  Ethnology  —  Ewalds'  Welt-alter — Joseph — The  Israelites  in 
Egypt  —  Pharaoh  and  Moses  —  The  Life  in  the  Wilderness  — 
The  Heroic  Age  of  Joshua  —  Days  of  the  Judges  —  From 
Samuel  to  Ezra  —  We  look  right  into  that  Old  World  —  Its 
Vivid  Truthfulness  ^—  The  Prophets  —  The  Monstrous  Hypothe- 


And  this  presents  the  argument  to  whose 
general  statement  much  of  what  has  been 
said  in  the  preceding  pages  is  but  prepara- 
tory. Given  the  natural  in  the  Bible,  the 
supernatural  follows  as  a  logical  or  necessary 
consequence  ;  given  the  credible,  or  that 
which  is  to  be  received  on  grounds  of  ordi- 
nary belief,  and  the  marvellous  cannot  be 


THE    DIVINE   HUMAN.  181 

rejected.  Or,  to  give  the  statement  another 
form  :  setting  aside,  or  passing  over  all  that 
can  be  called  supernatural  in  the  Bible,  or 
leaving  it  out  of  view  in  the  first  premiss,  we 
have  remaining  a  series  of  narrations  to 
which  no  candid  man  can  deny  an  inherent 
truthfulness,  a  strong  life-likeness  in  the  de- 
lineation of  events, — in  a  word,  a  rational 
historic  probability  unsurpassed  by  that  of 
any  other  writings  ancient  or  modern.  We 
say  no  man  can  deny  this  who  has  truly 
studied  the  phenomenon,  or  has  a  right  feel- 
ing of  what  is  deepest  yet  most  human  in 
our  human  nature.  Other  religious  books, 
so  called,  destroy  our  belief  in  their  super- 
natural, not  more  by  its  own  wildness  and 
grotesque  monstrosity  than  by  the  unnatural 
and  inhuman  representations  they  connect 
with  it  of  the  ordinary  or  natural  life.  With 
the  Scriptures  it  is  just  the  reverse.  Aside 
from  the  miraculous, — and  all  this  may  be 
taken  out  without  interrupting  the  history 
or    destroying    the    earthly    consecution    of 


182  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

earthly  facts, — no  narratives  are  so  natural, 
so  human,   so  inherently  credible,   as  those 
given  to  us  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
Turn  we  first  to  that  most  scanty  yet  most 
graphic  picture  of  the  Antediluvian  world. 
A  bare    skeleton   indeed  ;    but  what  more 
probable,  what  more  credible,  than  that  the 
race,   if  it  ever  had  any  beginning  at  all, 
should  have  had  some  such  beginning,  some 
such  introduction  into  the  world,  some  such 
early  condition  as  is  there  ascribed  to  them. 
It  is  true  that  here  the  supernatural  cannot 
be  wholly  left  out,  for  even  science  forces  it 
upon  us  ;  but  barely  conceding  the  fact  of  a 
creation  some  way  not  many  thousand  years 
ago,  and  what  a  most  perfect  keeping  in  all 
that  follows, — the  long  life  of  the  new  man- 
hood, the  early  fall  into  evil,  the  early  pro- 
clivity to  sensualism,  the  speedy  corruption, 
the  mingling  of  the  virtuous  and  the  vile,  the 
greater  velocity  of  the   downward  earthly 
tendency,  the  predominance  of  the  animal 
after   the   first  rebellion  against   truth  and 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  183 

conscience,  the  small  number  of  the  pious, 
the  few  words  touching  that  lonely  man  of 
whom  the  reverence  of  after  years  "testified  " 
that  "  he  walked  with  God  and  was  not  seen 
to  tarry  long  on  earth,  for  God  had  taken 
him  away," — the  strifes  and  separations,  the 
great  increase  of  population,  the  sudden 
growth  of  wickedness  outwardly  accelerated 
then  by  the  want  of  that  dear-bought  ex- 
perience which  teaches  men  in  this  old  age 
of  the  world  the  prudential  policy  of  indi- 
vidual and  social  restraint,  the  giant  power 
of  appetite  and  passion  in  the  early  vigorous 
human  frame  contributing  to  the  same  result, 
the  giant  forms  of  vice,  and,  perhaps,  the 
monstrous  physical  births  that  were  the  con- 
sequence,— the  earth  at  last  filled  with  vio- 
lence, "  all  flesh  corrupting  its  way,"  and 
hastening  on  to  the  utter  physical  as  well  as 
moral  ruin,  if  some  power  interpose  not  to 
save  a  remnant  by  the  necessary  excision  of 
the  multitude,  and  thus  preserve  a  chosen 
seed  for  a  future  and  more   hopeful  world. 


184  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

How  natural,  how  human,  how  true  to  the 
life,  as  judged  by  all  we  now  know  of  man, 
or  can  easily  conceive  of  him  in  that  early 
time,  when  sin  was  young,  and  passion 
strong,  and  the  morals  of  expediency  had 
not  yet  been  reduced  to  a  system  on  the 
earth !  Can  we  believe  in  such  a  deluge  of 
evil  ?  then  is  it  also  easy  to  believe  in  that 
deluge  of  cleansing  waters  as  the  great 
means  both  of  physical  and  moral  regenera- 
tion to  a  ruined  world.  The  life  of  man  was 
shortened,  but  a  check  was  given  to  that 
predominating  animality  which  might  have 
reduced  our  nature  to  the  condition  of  the 
brute  intensified  by  the  malignity  and  intel- 
ligence of  the  daemon. 

Or  turn  we  next  to  that  postdiluvian 
patriarchal  life,  so  simple,  yet  so  grand  in 
its  simplicity,  so  religious,  as  we  might  well 
expect  men  to  be  after  the  traditions  of  such 
a  catastrophe,  so  fearing  God,  the  One  Great 
God,— El  Shaddai,  El  01am,  El  Eliun,  Al- 
mighty, Eternal,  Most  High, — and  yet  with  a 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  185 

creed  extending  so  little  beyond  this  prime 
article,  whether  we  regard  it  as  natural  or 
revealed.  "Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  right  ?"  This  was  the  substance  of 
their  ethics,  as  well  as  the  sum  of  their  the- 
ology. "They  were  pilgrims  and  sojourn- 
ers upon  earth  ;"  He  who  was  their  God, 
the  "God  of  the  living,"  was  also  the  God 
of  the  pious  departed,  who  in  some  way, 
they  knew  not  how,  still  "  lived  unto  Him.'7 
This  was  the  length  and  breadth  of  their 
creed  respecting  a  future  state  and  a  future 
salvation.  They  trusted  in  God  ;  "  they  be- 
lieved God,  and  this  was  counted  unto  them 
for  righteousness."  Such  a  faith  we  may 
concede  unto  them,  and  call  it  natural  if  we 
please.  It  is  most  natural,  if  by  the  term 
we  mean  that  which  is  most  fitting,  and,  on 
that  account,  most  credible.  It  could  be 
shown  that  nothing  would  be  more  unnatural 
than  any  connection  of  pantheistic  ideas,  or 
of  a  symbolical  polytheism,  with  that  simple 
patriarchal  life.     Both  are  monsters  born  at 


186  THE     DIVINE    HUMAN 

a  later  day,  and  generated  in  depraved 
spiritual  conjunctions  unknown  to  the 
earliest  thinking.  Let  their  religion,  then, 
be  called  the  religion  of  nature  ;  we  would 
prefer,  for  our  argument's  sake,  to  have  it 
so.  They  believed  in  God  ;  but  beyond  this 
exclude  all  the  supernatural  in  act  that  has 
found  place  in  their  Bible  history.  Leave 
out  the  visions  of  angels,  the  hearing  of 
divine  voices,  and  how  truthful  is  it  in  all 
that  remains !  How  strongly  does  this 
ancient  life  impress  us  with  a  feeling  of  its 
graphic  and  most  intense  reality !  What 
mind  could  have  drawn  the  picture  without 
having  drawn  from  the  life,  whether  that 
life  came  to  it  from  tradition  or  from  inspi- 
ration ! 

And  so  of  the  collateral  records.  One 
may  be  defied  to  imagine  anything  more 
probable,  in  itself,  than  the  ethnological 
chart  given  to  us  in  the  Tenth  of  Genesis. 
With  what  transport  of  delight  would  our 
learned    world    have    received   it,   how  un- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  187 

bounded  would  have  been  their  confidence 
in  its  correctness  and  its  value,  had  it  been 
dug  out  of  some  Assyrian  ruin,  or  decypher- 
ed  from  some  crumbling  Egyptian  monu- 
ment! A  certain  modern  school  has  become 
wonderfully  familiar  with  this  early  world. 
They  have  a  sort  of  intuition  that  enables 
them  to  go  up  far  beyond  where  Herod- 
otus, and  Manetho,  and  the  Bible,  and  even 
the  hireoglyphics,  fail  them.  There  they 
take  their  interior  post  of  observation,  and 
think  it  all  out  for  themselves.  Yery  in- 
genious are  they  sometimes  ;  but  what  Ger- 
man mind  so  prolific  in  welt- alter,  or  what 
Westminster  reviewer  can  furnish  us,  from 
any  of  their  ''subjective  stand-points, ;;  a 
hypothetical  account  of  the  early  divisions 
and  races  of  mankind,  more  rational,  more 
likely  in  itself,  more  perfectly  consistent  with 
all  known  subsequent  history,  than  just  the 
one  presented  in  this  remarkable  document 
beyond  all  doubt  so  far  surpassing  any 
known  antiquity. 


188  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

The  same  features  of  inherent  verity  meet 
us  in  the  record  of  the  Israelitish  bondage, 
and  in  that  clear  page  of  Egyptian  history 
standing  out  like  some  old-world  geological 
relic,  we  might  say,  so  long  before  any 
known  chronicles  of  the  later  times !  Ro- 
mantic, indeed,  but  what  a  life-like  romance 
is  the  story  of  Joseph !  Strange,  indeed, 
the  coincidences,  though  not  more  remark- 
able than  have  taken  place  in  more  ordinary 
life  ;  but  in  what  other  narrative  have  the 
good  and  evil  of  the  human  soul  been  ever 
blended  in  such  truthful  consistency  of 
thought  and  emotion  ?  been  ever  painted  in 
such  perfect  harmony  with  the  universal 
human  consciousness  ?  Take  away  the 
dreams,  and  what  has  more  the  air  of  veri- 
table history,  more  of  that  minute  detail 
and  circumstantial  coloring  which  the  geog- 
raphy and  chronology  of  Eg}^pt  could  alone 
impart  to  it,  than  the  story  of  the  plenty 
and  the  famine !  We  may  dispense  with 
Herodotus  and  the   monuments,  in  our  in- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  189 

quiry  after  the  origin  of  the  Egyptian  land 
divisions,  and  the  cast  privileges  of  the 
priests.  Here  we  have  it  brightly  limned  ; 
the  traditional  copy  of  Manetho  had  become 
sadly  defaced  in  time  ;  we  can,  however, 
restore  it  by  the  aid  of  Moses.  But  let  us 
travel  down  to  a  later  dynasty,  to  the  days 
of  that  new  monarch  "who  knew  not 
Joseph."  Look  at  that  world-ideal  of  the 
irresponsible  tyrant.  No  fancy  ever  made 
him  ;  no  human  imagination  could  have  kept 
up  a  consistency,  so  well  sustained,  of  char- 
acter and  destiny.  Leave  out,  if  you  please, 
all  that  is  miraculous  in  the  plagues,  or  re- 
solve them  into  strictly  physical  events 
coming  at  longer  seeming  intervals,  and 
having  a  miraculous  air  by  being  crowded 
upon  a  brief  historical  canvas.  There  still 
remains  something  that  cannot  be  effaced 
without  effacing  human  nature.  There 
stand  the  figures  of  the  prophet  and  the 
king  ;  we  have  before  us  that  truest  of  des- 
pots,  that   grandest   of    seers,    that    pride- 


190  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

hardened  heart,  that  lofty  enthusiasm — or, 
if  you  please,  that  stern  fanaticism — that 
burthened  people,  with  their  vile,  yet  most 
human-like,  ingratitude  towards  their  heroic 
defender,  that  fearful  retribution,  that  over- 
whelming fall,  that  song  in  the  desert,  when 
11  the  horse  and  his  rider  had  been  cast  into 
the  depths  of  the  sea."  In  the  midst  of  such 
scenes,  as  they  are  presented  to  the  reader's 
imagination,  the  avenging  angel  seems  like  a 
demand  of  nature,  and  to  fall  into  the  rank 
of  expected  events.  But  leaving  out,  we 
say,  everything  of  that  kind,  and  where  else 
was  there  ever  presented  a  narrative  of 
deeds  on  that  high  scale  so  like  the  truth  ! 
The  account  has  become  familiar  to  us,  but 
that  is  not  the  secret  of  its  power.  Pharaoh 
and  Moses, — we  image  them,  at  once,  as 
forms  of  living  men  :  they  have  more  life 
for  us  than  Solon  and  Croesus,  than  Socrates 
and  the  Athenian  judges,  than  Seneca  and 
Nero,  than  any  characters  that  were  ever 
drawn  by  the  genius  of  Homer,  or  sketched 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  191 

by  the  graphic  pen  of  Tacitus.  The  scenes 
are  so  vivid,  though  so  far  away  ;  so  life-like, 
though  of  such  high  proportion  ;  so  natural, 
though  so  grand,  that  we  can  hardly  con- 
ceive their  falsehood.  What  convergency  of 
scattered  myths  could  have  grown  into  such 
a  consistent  whole  ?  What  single  mind 
could  ever  have  created  a  picture  so  de- 
fiant of  the  antiquating  power  of  time  !  It 
has  the  same  life  for  us  now,  in  this  remote 
Western  world,  that  it  had  more  than  three 
thousand  years  ago  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile. 
There  it  stands  right  before  us,  as  though 
written  yesterday,  clear  as  the  pyramids, 
fresh  as  the  sculptures  on  the  Karnak,  and 
with  a  meaning  for  the  world  how  far  be- 
yond any  wisdom  we  may  ever  hope  to  get 
from  folios  of  monumental  learning.  It  is, 
in  fact,  a  painting  that  never  can  grow  old  ; 
for  it  is  engraved,  photographed,  we  might 
say,  in  our  human  nature  ;  age  only  adds  to 
the  brightness  of  its  coloring  ;  the  most 
minute  inspection,  under  the  highest  lens  of 


192  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

antiquarian  learning,  only  reveals  its  perfect 
accuracy  of  line  and  shade.     Can  it  be  pos- 
sible that  such  a  living  sketch  could  have  had 
no  original  among  the  realities  of  the  world  ? 
We  pass  on  to  the  migration  in  the  wilder- 
ness, the  rebellion  of  the  people  against  their 
prophet,  their  murmurings  against  their  God, 
startling   to   the   superficial   view,   yet    how 
credible  when  judged  by  the  deeper  knowl- 
edge of  our  greatly-depraved,  and,  with  all 
its  powers  of  reason,  ofttimes  most  irrational 
humanity.    Then  naturally  rises  before  us  the 
succeeding  epoch,  the  return  of  the  descend- 
ants of  the  Patriarchs  to  the  old  Fatherland, 
and  the  divison  of  the  reconquered  inheri- 
tance.    The  first  chapter  in  the  heroic  age  is 
past,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  the  days  of 
the  "Judges," — the  second  race  of  hero  chief- 
tains still  filled  with  the  traditional  spirit  of 
the  earlier  day.    They  were  men,  and  women, 
too,  of  mightiest  courage,  of  most  lofty  en- 
thusiasm ;  the  Scriptures  say  it  was  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  that  came  mightily  upon  them  ; 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  193 

but  call  it  what  you  will,  they  were  just  the 
men  and  women  for  the  times,  and  their 
spirit  was  just  what  was  demanded  for  the 
exigencies  of  the  times,  "  when  there  was  no 
king  in  Israel,  and  each  tribe  and  family  did 
that  which  was  right  in  their  own  eyes." 
How  does  each  part  of  the  sketch  supply  the 
apparent  defect  of  another,  until  all  the  por- 
tions combined  blend  into  a  whole  of  irresist- 
ible truthfulness  ?  The  weakness  of  the 
mere  political  bonds,  the  strength  of  the 
ethnological  affinities,  the  civil  strifes,  the 
ancestral  remembrances  holding  them  to- 
gether in  spite  of  all  dividing  causes,  the 
warrior  faith  of  Gideon  uniting  "  all  Israel 
as  one  heart  and  soul,"  the  reaction  to  this 
high  state  exhibiting  itself  in  the  demagog- 
ism  of  Gaal  the  son  of  Ebed,  the  meaner  or 
unheroic  traits  that  followed  the  great  wTars, 
as  shown  in  "  the  evil  spirit  that  was  put  be- 
tween Abimelech  and  the  men  of  Shechem," 
the  frenzied  curse  of  Jotham  fulfilled  in  the 
cruel  strifes  of  the  men  who  had  murdered 
9 


194  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  children  of  their  deliverer,  the  days  of 
Joshua  again  called  to  remembrance  by  the 
religious   heroism   of  Jepthah,    the    lawless 
Danites  who  in  all  their  filibustering  wick- 
edness must  have  a  priest  and  a  Levite  even 
if  they  stole  him,  the  terrible  fruits  of  an- 
archy as  shown  in  the  revolting  crime  of  the 
"  men  of  Gibreh."  and  that  sublime  national 
vengeance  which  brought  together  all  Israel 
as  one    man  to  punish  these  sons  of  Belial 
and  the  tribe  that  refused  to  give  them  up, — 
we  see  it  all ;  from  our  distant  place  of  ob- 
servation we  perceive  precisely  the  relations 
of  cause  and  effect  in  all  their  harmonious 
play  and  fair  analogies  as  presented  to  us  in 
these  old-world  scenes.     Their  plain  chron- 
iclers had  no  philosophy  of  history  ;  but  they 
were  inspired  for  a  higher  office,  to  set  be- 
fore us  a  perfect  representation  of  humanity 
as  the  materials  from  which  others  might 
construct  a  philosophy,  deep  or  shallow  in 
proportion  as  they  can  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  this  strange  people,  so  intensely  human, 


IK    THE    SCRIPTURES.  195 

and  yet,  in  many  striking  respects,  so  differ- 
ent from  all  other  men. 

And  then  the  national  history  in  Palestine 
from  Samuel  to  Ezra.  We  venture  the  as- 
sertion, that  never  in  the  annals  of  the  race 
has  there  been  so  much  of  nature,  of  pure 
humanity,  yea,  of  the  most  important  his- 
torical ideas,  so  compressed,  yet  so  graphi- 
cally given,  in  the  compass  of  so  few  pages. 
There  is  a  light  in  truth,  a  self-evidencing 
light,  that  helps  us  to  see  across  that  wide 
chasm  of  centuries  ;  we  discern  objects 
plainly  on  the  other  side  ;  we  look  right  into 
that  old  world  ;  so  perfect  is  the  diorama 
that  we  see  it  to  be  a  real,  living,  moving 
world,  with  a  wondrous  life  impressing  us 
with  a  sense  of  its  distinct  reality  more 
strongly,  perhaps,  than  any  page  that  comes 
nearest  to  us  in  our  own  most  modern  his- 
tory. To  come  down  to  later  times,  what 
can  be  more  stirring,  more  like  a  veritable, 
undeniable  thing,  whose  falsehood,  when 
once  the  image  has  been  distinctly  formed, 


196  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

it  is  more  difficult  to  conceive,  than  the  rapt 
enthusiasm  and  burning  harangues  of  the 
Jewish  prophets.  We  refer  now  to  their 
subjective  state  as  an  intense  human  reality, 
irrespective  of  any  supposed  supernatural 
cause,  or  of  any  assumed  truth  of  their  pre- 
dictions. In  those  impassioned  appeals  the 
whole  national  and  genealogical  history 
comes  over  again.  About  this  time,  as  some 
hold,  the  Pentateuch  and  the  earlier  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament  were  written,  in  other 
words,  the  whole  Jewish  history  created. 
But  what  a  monstrous  proposition  this ! 
When  carefully  examined,  or  even  barely 
looked  at,  can  anything  surpass  it  in  improb- 
ability, did  anything  ever  come  from  the 
learned  lovers  of  paradox,  that  presented 
such  a  demand  upon  our  credulity  ?  We 
must  imagine  the  almost  unimaginable  ab- 
surdity of  a  whole  national  legislation,  with 
all  the  manners  and  peculiarities  and  modes 
of  thought  that  might  be  supposed  to  grow 
out  of  it  in  the  course  of  ages,  a  national 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  197 

archaeology  full  of  supposed  glorious  remi- 
niscences, a  national  poetry  seemingly  in- 
spired by  these  shadowy  nonentities,  a  na- 
tional didactic  or  ethical  literature  seemingly 
grounded  on  such  a  baseless  ancestral  wis- 
dom, a  national  culture  hypothetically  the 
growth  of  historical  centuries  that  never  had 
any  existence,  or  any  adequate  existence  for 
such  a  purpose, — we  must  imagine  all  this, 
we  say,  from  Genesis  to  Ezra,  to  have  been 
a  compilation,  if  not  an  entire  forgery,  of 
the  latest  prophetic  period  itself,  or  else  the 
Hebrew  prophets  give  us  the  most  truthful 
as  well  as  the  most  animated  picture  of  a 
national  life  that  was  ever  painted  in  the 
annals  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

The  Internal  Truthfulness  of  the  Scriptures  —  Three  Hy- 
potheses —  1.  A  Veritable  History  —  2.  An  Entire  Forgery  — 
3.  A  Traditional  Compilation  —  The  Second  Impossible  — 
Eeasons  —  Peculiar  Character  of  Historical  and  Literary  For- 
geries —  Wholly  Alien  to  the  Idea  of  that  Age  —  If  the  History 
Forged,  how  much  must  be  Forged  with  it  —  The  Third  Hy- 
pothesis —  Imagined  Method  —  Difficulties  —  Unfitness  of  the 
Later  Times  of  Jewish  History  for  such  a  work  —  Still  it  is 
Plausible,  unless  there  is  some  Internal  Obstacle  —  There  is  such 
an  Obstacle  —  How  History  arose  in  Other  Nations  —  Might  be 
so  Regarded  as  arising  from  the  Jewish,  were  it  not  for  a  Pe- 
culiar Trait  —  The  Bible  a  Book  of  Numbers  —  Compare  the 
Pentateuch  with  the  First  Volume  of  Grote's  History  of  Greece 
—  Driven  to  the  first  Hypothesis. 

Let  us  dwell  on  this,  for  it  is  deserving  of 
our  most  attentive  consideration.  The  study 
of  the  Bible,  as  it  ought  to  be  studied, 
brings  us  to  a  sharp  and  unavoidable  issue. 
The  Jewish  histories  are  the  most  astounding 
of  forgeries,  or  they  are  the  most  truthful 
writings  the  world  has  ever  seen.  This  can 
be  made  clear  by  simply  presenting  the  only 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  199 

three  theories  that  can  possibly  be  had  re- 
specting them,  and  which  may  be  thus 
stated : 

1st.  It  is  an  authentic  and  veritable  his- 
tory, written,  as  a  whole,  and  in  all  its  parts, 
at  the  time  or  times  at  which  they  purport 
to  be  written,  and  by  persons  having  a  near 
knowledge  of  the  events  recorded,  whether 
that  knowledge  came  from  inspiration,  or 
personal  acquaintance,  or  accurate  tradition 
carefully  preserved  and  capable  of  being 
tested  by  its  close  contiguity  with  the  acts 
recorded,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  first  re- 
cording chronicler,  on  the  other. 

2d.  It  is  an  entire  forgery,  made  in  the 
later  periods  of  the  Jewish  nationality  in 
order  to  give  to  it  an  ancestry  and  an- 
tiquity to  which  in  truth  it  had  no  claim, — 
all  its  details  being  sheer  invention, — its 
archaeology,  its  chronology,  its  geography, 
its  political  and  social  delineations  being 
the  work  of  some  single  mind  or  minds 
conspiring  for  that  set  purpose,  and  setting 


200  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

themselves  deliberately  to  the  work  of  so 
minute  and  comprehensive  a  falsehood. 

3d.  It  is  a  compilation  made  in  the  latter 
days,  but  from  sources  existing  before. 
These  are  traditions  and  fragmentary  rec- 
ords, of  which  the  latter  are  to  a  good  de- 
gree, though  not  entirely,  mythical,  and  the 
former  had  grown  out  of  obscure  ancient 
events,  having  some  ground  of  truth,  and  so 
honestly  believed,  but  exaggerated  from  age 
to  age,  with  a  continual  addition  of  the 
marvellous  and  the  supernatural,  until  at 
last  their  growth  was  checked  by  their  being 
incorporated  into  a  more  comprehensive  and 
methodical  history. 

One  of  these  is  true,  for  here  are  the 
books  ;  here  is  the  Jewish  nationality,  as 
it  has  been  for  ages  crystallized  in  the  very 
heart  of  history.  The  first,  then,  we  say,  is 
possible,  involving  no  absurdity  (even  if  we 
connect  the  supernatural  with  it),  and  must 
be  received  as  against  the  second,  or  if  the 
issue  is  confined  to  them  alone.    The  second 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  201 

is  utterly  incredible,  unimaginable  in  design, 
impossible  in  execution.  No  one  would  even 
think  of  it,  who  has  formed  any  conception 
of  what  it  actually  involves.  The  third  is 
probable,  natural,  apparently  consistent  with 
what  is  known  of  the  formation  of  other 
early  history,  and  would  have  a  fair  claim  to 
be  received,  if  there  is  no  higher  opposing 
evidence,  or  if  there  is  not  something  in  the 
Bible  history  that  altogether  shuts  out  any 
such  comparison  with  apparently  correspond- 
ing annals  of  other  nations.  That  there  is 
something  of  this  kind,  and  that,  too,  patent 
on  the  very  face  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
we  think  can  be  clearly  maintained.  In 
short,  there  is  a  serious  difficulty  m  the 
plausible  third,  which,  equally  with  the  utter 
impossibility  of  the  second,  drives  us  back  to 
the  first  as  the  only  hypothesis  consistent 
with  nature  and  truth. 

The  absolute,  wholesale   forgery  must  be 
rejected.      It   is  incredible   in  itself  ;    it  is 
incredible  from  the  outward  difficulties  that 
9* 


202  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

must  attend  such  an  undertaking.  It  is  in- 
herently incredible.  No  motive  can  be  as- 
signed for  it.  Let  us  imagine  it,  if  we  can. 
Let  us  carry  ourselves  back  into  the  period 
supposed,  with  all  its  surroundings,  as  far  as 
they  may  be  known  from  other  sources  ;  let 
us  try  to  think  of  some  single  scribe,  or 
some  number  of  scribes,  in  the  days  of  Heze- 
kiah,  preparing  pens  and  parchment  rolls  for 
such  a  purpose,  even  to  impose  upon  a 
nation  a  history  unknown  to  the  national 
life,  a  religion  and  a  worship  unconnected 
with  any  previous  sentiments  either  of  rev- 
erence or  superstition.  The  very  difficulty 
of  the  conception  shows  the  far  greater 
difficulty  of  anything  like  success  in  the  exe- 
cution. The  story  of  Samson  is  far  less  in- 
credible ;  the  worship,  by  the  Jews,  of  the 
Egyptian  Apis,  or  of  the  calves  of  Jeroboam, 
would  be  even  less  irrational  and  absurd. 
Historical  and  literary  forgeries  belong  to 
a  peculiar  state  of  things  very  different  from 
anything  we    can    conceive   of   as    existing 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  203 

among  the  Jews  in  the  days  of  Ezra.  There 
is  ever  some  wide  age-agitating  interest, 
some  sharply  controverted  world-idea,  to 
which  they  are  brought  in  aid.  It  is  on  this 
account  that  they  are  ever  collateral,  never 
wholesale  ;  ever  fragmentary,  partial,  remote, 
avoiding  direct  connection  with  the  present 
state  of  things,  never  creating  de  novo  not 
only  the  collateral  aids  but  also  the  entire 
cause  to  which  they  are  brought  in  aid. 
Hence  they  are  ever  assigned  to  an  antiquity 
cut  off  by  deep  intervening  chasms  from  any 
present  emergency  they  are  cited  to  explain. 
Thus  the  forgeries  charged  upon  the  Patris- 
tic period  were  broken  Sibylline  verses,  or 
scraps  of  oracles  ;  they  were  fragments  from 
the  days  of  Orpheus,  as  was  supposed,  or 
the  Egyptian  Trismegistus.  But  these  Jew- 
ish forgeries  must  be  forgeries  all  the  way 
down  to  the  days  of  the  forgers.  They  con- 
nect themselves  with  an  immediate  past  of 
which  they  to  whom  they  are  addressed  have 
no  knowledge.     They  are  wholesale,  too,  as 


204  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

we  have  said  ;  they  must  include,  and  do  in- 
clude, if  this  most  difficult  theory  be  correct, 
not  only  a  forged  history,  but  along  with  it  a 
forged  poetry,  a  forged  national  literature, 
a  forged  ethics,  a  forged  religion,  a  forged 
worship,  forged  prayers  and  hymns,  a  forged 
ritual  system  all  made  to  suit,  forged  nation- 
al songs  for  forged  deliverances,  a  forged 
geography,  at  least  in  its  names  as  adapted 
to  ancient  local  events,  a  forged  chronology, 
together  with  the  forgery  of  many  thousand 
proper  names  of  men  all  having  a  signifi- 
cance in  the  vernacular  language,  and  that 
significance  corresponding  so  wonderfully  to 
the  times  and  circumstances  in  which  they 
are  supposed  to  be  given.  Even  the  lan- 
guage itself  must,  to  some  extent,  be  forged  ; 
it  must  be  cut  over  like  an  old  garment  and 
made  to  fit  the  earlier  as  well  as  the  later 
body.  Old  words  must  be  forged,  and  obso- 
lete grammatical  forms,  and  obscure  passages 
made  on  purpose,  such  as  to  demand  the 
Scholiast's  aid,  and  all  this  by  men  in  whose 


IX    THE    SCRIPTURES.  205 

language  there  had  been  previously  no  writ- 
ing, no  books,  no  literature,  and,  of  course,  no 
means  of  culture  either  for  the  individual  or 
the  common  mind.  We  cannot  receive  this. 
The  Jews  had  books,  they  had  varied  writ- 
ings, they  had  a  poetry,  a  history,  a  religion, 
they  had  schools  and  public  teachers,  they  had 
men  who  wrote  and  were  known  as  writers, 
they  had  all  this  in  the  days  preceding 
Ezra,  and  must,  therefore,  have  had  it  long 
before,  and  we  must  believe  that  they  had 
it,  just  as  their  history  implies,  or  else  admit- 
all  these  absurd  and  impossible  ideas. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  man,  and  of  some 
learning,  too,  who  maintained  that  all  we 
have,  or  seem  to  have,  of  classical  antiquity, 
was  a  wholesale  forgery  committed  by  some 
monks  of  the  middle  ages.  It  was  not  so 
extravagant  as  this  idea  of  a  Jewish  forgery 
inasmuch  as  there  is  in  the  Jewish  nation- 
ality and  its  collateral  life  a  much  more 
truthful  coherence  than  we  find  in  Greek  and 
Roman  history.     It  is  less  extensive  indeed, 


206  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

but  loftier  in  its  aim,  far  deeper  in  the 
grounds  and  consistency  of  its  national  ex- 
istence. 

But  why  dwell  upon  this  view  ?  It  is  not 
only  incredible  ;  it  is  utterly  impossible,  and 
the  idea  is  to  be  dismissed  at  once.  We  be- 
lieve that  no  man  of  standing  as  a  scholar 
or  a  thinker  now  really  holds  it,  however 
much  he  might  be  willing  to  give  such  an 
impression  favor  with  the  common  mind. 
The  more  thoughtful  among  the  German 
rationalistic  interpreters  see  its  utter  absurd- 
ity, although  some  of  their  speculations  can 
be  maintained  on  no  other  basis.  In  short, 
take  all  the  Old  Testament  supernatural, 
separate  or  combined,  and  it  cannot  present 
a  problem  so  hard  for  our  understanding,  or 
a  statement  so  difficult  for  our  faith,  as  this 
hypothesis  when  carried  out  in  all  its  legiti- 
mate deductions. 

There  remains,  then,  the  first  view,  unless 
there  be  some  good  ground  for  resting  in 
the  third.     Is  the  Jewish  history  a  compila- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  207 

tion  ? — not  a  forgery,  but  an  honest  gather- 
ing of  national  traditions,  and  some  few  iso- 
lated and  fragmentary  records  made  from 
previous  traditions,  though  none  of  them, 
except  perhaps  those  that  belong  to  the 
latest  times,  coming  from  persons  contempo- 
raneous with,  or  near  in  time  to,  the  events 
narrated  or  recorded?  A  mere  recension 
of  writings  all  existing  before,  though  now 
arranged  in  order,  would  not  suit  the  hy- 
pothesis. It  would  not  differ  enough  from 
the  common  view  of  the  scriptures  to  make 
a  difference  of  argument.  Historical  tra- 
ditions having  a  strong  outline  character, 
national  laws  and  customs  connected  tra- 
ditionally with  supposed  early  events,  these 
events  thrown  into  an  unknown  antiquity, 
regarded  indeed  as  old,  but  with  an  absence 
of  any  definite  or  consistent  chronology, — 
add  to  these  local  traditions,  family  tradi- 
tions, together  with  some  few  writings  of  a 
lyrical  rather  than  a  documentary  character, 
songs  of  war   or  hymns  of  devotion,  with 


208  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

here  and  there,  perhaps,  a  monumental  rec- 
ord rudely  carved  on  rock  or  temple,  and 
we  have  just  the  materials  for  our  third  view 
and  the  arguments  demanded  for  its  consis- 
tency. The  question  then  is,  did  such  a  work 
of  compilation,  or  gathering  and  shaping  of 
all  floating  historical  element,  take  place  in 
those  later  times  to  which  some  would  give 
the  name  of  known  or  authentic  history, 
(even  calling  it  "the  historical"  emphati- 
cally in  distinction  from  the  mythical,)  al- 
though it  is,  in  fact,  just  that  period  of  the 
Jewish  nationality  which  is  the  least  known 
and  most  confused  of  all. 

It  is  certainly  a  very  remarkable  thought, 
not  indeed  wholly  subversive  of  this  view, 
but  suggested  immediately  by  it,  that  the 
beginning  of  a  nation's  written  or  authentic 
history  should  be  the  beginning  of  that  por- 
tion which  is  the  darkest  in  its  entire  annals. 
For  such — in  the  subjective  effect,  certainly, 
or  the  truthfulness  of  its  impression — is  the 
character  and  position  of  the  four  or  five 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  209 

centuries  of  Jewish  history  between  the 
captivity  and  the  coming  of  Christ.  It  stands 
like  a  dark  hiatus  between  the  clear  pictures 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament ;  on  either 
side  a  well-defined  and  cultivated  territory, 
between  them  a  pathless  and  tangled  forest. 
What  a  light  is  there  about  Moses,  and 
David,  and  Solomon,  and  Hezekiah,  and 
Isaiah,  as  compared  with  Onias,  and  Hyr- 
canus,  and  Aristobulus,  and  other  dark  figures 
that  flit  about  in  the  chaotic  waste  over 
which,  even  with  the  aid  of  Josephus,  we 
find  it  so  hard  to  make  our  way.  Every 
reader  of  this  last  named  author  must  have 
felt  something  of  this.  How  sudden  is  the 
transition,  and  how  sensible  we  are  of  it, 
when  he  passes  from  the  known  field  of  the 
canonical  writings !  It  is  as  when  the  travel- 
ler leaves  the  fertile  land,  or  the  border  of 
the  green  oasis,  for  the  arid  Sahara.  If  the 
Jewish  written  history  first  commenced  with 
this  period,  then  was  the  morning  the  be- 
ginning of  the  night. 


210  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

But  waving  all  these  considerations,  let 
us  proceed  with  the  hypothesis,  and  see 
what  its  completion  involves.  In  the  days 
of  Ezra,  then,  or  within  a  generation  or  two 
either  way,  some  of  the  wiser  men  of  the 
Jewish  nation  sat  themselves  down  to  this 
gathering  of  the  national  memories  before 
they  should  be  forever  lost.  They  talked 
with  the  old  fathers  of  every  tribe,  they 
visited  monumental  places,  they  examined 
carefully  the  scattered  current  traditions, 
they  hunted  out  every  written  scrap  they 
could  find  of  the  national  songs  ;  they  lis- 
tened to  the  Prophet  or  poet,  the  Hebrew 
Ish  Elohim  or  inspired  "  Man  of  God,"  the 
Oeloq  avrtf),  or  national  bard,  as  he  chanted 
the  old  unwritten  melodies,  or  those  peculiar 
Messianic  Oracles  in  which  this  strange  race 
had  ever  claimed  for  themselves  a  world- 
destiny  ;  they  looked  into  the  traditions  of 
other  neighboring  nations  supposed  to  be 
remotely  though  genealogically  allied,  and 
through  them   endeavored    to  ascend  to   a 


IN    THE    SCRIPTUKES.  211 

higher  patriarchal  age,  giving  themselves  the 
rank  of  First  Born  among  the  Sons  of  Men. 
These  materials  they  endeavor,  as  well  as 
they  can, — but  with  all  honesty, —  to  get  into 
some  chronological  order.  This  would  be, 
indeed,  their  hardest  task,  but  having  suc- 
ceeded in  it,  as  they  supposed,  with  tolerable 
fidelity,  though  necessarily  leaving  much  un- 
known and  still  more  that  was  utterly  ir- 
reconcilable, they  next  supply,  but  honestly 
supply,  from  their  best  conjectures,  the  old 
national  ideas,  religions,  laws,  that  could 
alone  account  for  such  remarkable  traditions, 
and  for  such  a  peculiar  attitude  as  they  must  be 
conscious  of  having  toward  the  other  nations 
of  the  earth.  Now  in  all  this  we  have  sup- 
posed them  honest ;  for  it  is,  in  fact,  essen- 
tial to  the  integrity  of  the  hypothesis,  and 
becomes  of  great  importance  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Jewish  history  as  we  have 
it  now  lying  in  our  Bibles  could  ever  have 
been  compiled  by  truthful  men  from  such 
materials,   and  to  the  still  further  and  in- 


212  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

volved  question  whether,  therefore,  this 
third  of  our  suppositions  does  not,  after 
all,  contain  a  difficulty  equal  to,  if  not  still 
greater  than,  anything  in  the  second.  Still 
they  might  be  honest,  and  yet  exaggerate. 
They  might  have  no  idea  of  direct  or  sys- 
tematic forgery,  and  yet  the  national  pride 
might  lead  them  unconsciously  to  give  a  col- 
oring to  certain  traditions,  and  perhaps, 
without  intending  any  cheat,  to  enhance  the 
marvellous  that  had  already  been  growing 
through  ages  of  successive  transmission. 

As  an  a  priori  supposition,  then,  this  third 
scheme,  as  we  have  presented  it,  and  very 
fairly  presented  it,  we  think,  looks  extremely 
probable.  If  we  had  never  opened  our 
Bibles  to  see  how  strange  a  history  they 
actually  contain,  how  different  from  that  of 
any  other  ancient  nation,  we  should  regard 
it  as  a  most  rational  mode  of  accounting  for 
the  matter.  There  is  an  inherent  plausibility 
in  the  thing  ;  it  is  so  like  the  way  in  which 
history  may  have  arisen  among  other  peoples, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  213 

that  we  are  inclined  to  receive  it  if  there  be 
nothing  in  the  way,  no  formidable  obstacle, 
at  least,  in  the  very  history  supposed  to  be 
the  result  of  such  a  process. 

But  there  is  something  in  the  way  ;  there 
is  just  such  a  formidable  obstacle.  If  they 
have  produced  this  history  we  now  have 
in  our  Bibles,  then  the  compilers  of  these 
Jewish  annals  (if  they  are  but  compilers)  can- 
not be  so  relieved  from  that  charge  of  direct, 
palpable,  and  conscious  forgery  which  we  find 
it  so  difficult  to  believe  of  them,  and  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  which  this  third  hypothe- 
sis was  resorted  to.  There  is  that  peculiarity 
in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  and  in  the  Jewish 
history  throughout,  which  brings  into  the 
third  scheme  all  the  difficulty,  or  the  greatest 
difficulty,  of  the  second,  and  that,  too,  with- 
out its  consistent  boldness  of  design  and 
execution.  It  is  not  hard  to  conceive  how 
the  early  Greek  history  thus  grew  up,  or  the 
Greek  myths  as  they  may  well  be  called,  and 
how  they  were  afterwards  arranged  in  the 


214  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

best  chronological  order  and  political  method 
that  could  be  obtained  from  such  chaotic 
materials.  It  is  all  very  much  as  we  should 
a  priori  expect  to  find  it;  gleams  of  light 
appearing  here  and  there,  a  few  consecutive 
lines  of  historical  strata  running  on  with 
tolerable  clearness  and  consistency,  then  in- 
terrupted by  sudden  faults  or  abrupt  inter- 
minglings  which  no  clue  that  we  can  find 
enables  us  either  to  separate  or  unite, — a 
chronology  in  perfect  disorder,  sometimes, 
by  reason  of  its  overlappings,  running  up  to  a 
pretentious  and  impossible  antiquity,  again, 
by  reason  of  some  vivid  impression  it  had 
made,  bringing  some  very  ancient  event 
away  down  into  the  very  foreground  of  these 
mythical  groupings.  And  so  of  all  the  early 
stories  given  by  Herodotus,  as  derived  by 
him  from  the  priests,  and  poets,  and  popular 
traditions  of  the  various  nations  that  he 
visited.  The  very  cloudiness  that  surrounds 
them,  the  disproportions  of  arrangement,  the 
predominance  of  the  fanciful  obscuring  and 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  215 

sometimes  putting  beyond  all  recovery  the 
idea  or  historical  fact  they  might  be  sup- 
posed to   represent,  the  legendary  features 
every  where  prevailing,  the  manifest  air  of 
the  marvellous  and  the  extraordinary  unre- 
lieved   by    pictures    of    the    common     and 
familiar  life,  the  unmistakable   aim  of  the 
chronicler    or    traditionist    to    call    atten- 
tion   to    the    mere    wonder  whilst    casting 
in  the  back- ground  the  moral  or  religious 
lesson    whose    prominence    in    the    Jewish 
"myths"  gives  the  supernatural  the  subordi- 
nate place,  and  thus,  as  we  have  shown  be- 
fore, imparts   to   it  its   air   of   strange  and 
almost   supernatural    credibility, — all  these 
things,  as  we  find  them  in  the  earliest  ac- 
counts of   other  nations,  are  just  as  we  ex- 
pect.    There  is  just  that  misty,  magnifying, 
distorting,  wonder-making,  legendary,  myth- 
ical air,  confounding  all  chronology,  and  all 
geography,  that  absence  of  elates,  that  con- 
fusion of  places,  that  blending  of  events  far 
distant  from  each  other  in  time  and  space, 


216  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

which  show  the  want  of  all  attesting  means 
of  knowledge,  whilst  they  bear  witness  to 
the  fertile  imaginations,  the  excited  feelings, 
in  fact,  the  subjective  truthfulness  of  these 
mythical  story-tellers,  as  it  appears  in  the 
very  disproportions  and  exaggerations  of 
their  narratives.  Instead  of  having  any 
accurate  chronicles  of  years,  these  loyoyQacpoi 
do  not  even  make  any  pretence  to  it ;  they 
would  seem  to  have  regarded  any  such  pre- 
cision of  places  and  times  as  at  war  with 
that  feeling  of  the  wonderful  that  filled  their 
minds,  and  which  dwells  chiefly  in  the  vast 
and  the  obscure. 

Such  is  all  ancient  mythical  history,  and 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  it  so.  Nothing 
but  some  supernatural  knowledge  and  super- 
natural guidance  could  have  made  it  other- 
wise. But  such  is  not  the  scripture  history, 
either  in  its  earliest  or  latest  stages,  and 
whether  we  regard  its  narratives  as  traditions 
or  as  having  been  the  subjects  of  recording 
at   the    time    of    occurence.     The    moment 


IN    THE    SCEIPTURES.  217 

we  open  these  "Jewish  myths,7'  so  called, 
there  is  discovered  a  most  remarkable  dif- 
ference lying  patent  on  every  page.  This 
peculiarity,  so  obvious  to  the  least  re- 
flecting reader,  is  what  may  be  called  the 
statistical  character  of  the  Scripture  Chroni- 
cles. The  Bible  is  a  Book  of  Numbers.  It 
is  a  trait  maintained  consistently  through- 
out. From  the  exact  nativities  of  the 
Antediluvian  ages,  from  the  precise  dates 
of  the  rising  and  subsiding  waters  of  the 
flood,  from  Noah's  almanac,  as  we  may 
say,  down  to  Haggai's  diary,  or  careful 
noting  of  the  very  year,  and  month,  and 
day  of  the  month,  in  which  the  word  of  the 
Lord  came  unto  him,  it  is  all  of  a  piece,  one 
consistent  number- giving,  time-keeping  rec- 
ord. The  Jews,  if  there  is  any  truth  in 
their  history  at  all,  were  a  journalizing 
people,  a  genealogizing  people  ;  the  Bible  is 
their  family  book  of  entries,  just  as  we  now 
employ  certain  pages  of  it  as  a  register  of 
births  and  deaths.  Precise  statistics  are 
10 


218  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

every  where,  and  every  where  purporting 
to  be  from  men  who  knew,  and  who  are,  in 
the  main,  supposed  to  be  recording  known 
present  or  passing  facts.  There  is  nothing 
like  it  in  the  history  of  any  other  people  on 
earth  ;  certainly  not  in  any  early  history- 
All  the  way  up  to  the  flood,  with  a  few  gaps 
which  seem  to  have  been  left  designedly  to 
baffle  human  curiosity,  there  is  a  regular 
chronological  track. 

Now  let  any  one  compare  the  first  volume 
of  Grote's  History  of  Greece  with  the  Pen- 
tateuch, the  confused  and  utterly  unchrono- 
logical  annals  of  the  Doric,  Hellenic,  and 
Eolic  races,  with  even  the  earliest  part  of 
the  Mosaic  writings,  or  the  history  of  the 
Patriarchs,  and  he  will  see  at  once  the  differ- 
ence on  which,  in  view  of  its  most  important 
consequences,  we  are  so  strongly  insisting. 
Darkness,  confusion,  shadows,  deformities, 
painful  perplexities,  or  hopeless  riddles,  in 
the  one, — the  clear  geography,  the  direct 
chronology,  the  fact  consistency,  the  life-like 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  219 

minuteness  of  coloring,  the  strange  combina- 
tion of  the  marvellous  in  such  perfect  affinity 
with  the  familiar  and  the  domestic  that  it 
loses  its  marvel, — all  this  in  the  other. 
Even  after  the  commencement  of  what  is 
called  the  "  historical  period,"  or  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Olympiads,  the  Grecian 
chronology  is  full  of  obscurities.  It  is  not 
easy  to  fix  the  times  of  the  historians  them- 
selves ;  there  is  a  doubt  about  Herodotus  ; 
the  Heraclidas  and  Lycurgus  fail  of  being 
precisely  determined  by  some  centuries  ;  but- 
more  than  a  thousand  years  before  Herod- 
otus, the  Hebrew  writings  set  forth  a  regu- 
lar chronology.  Before  Hellenians  and  Dori- 
ans had  set  foot  in  Greece,  many  centuries 
before  even  the  Pelasgi  "  were  in  the  land," 
we  are  told  the  time  of  life,  and  have  the 
means  of  reckoning  the  very  year,  when 
Abraham  went  forth  from  Ur  of  the  Chal- 
dees.  No,  there  is  no  escape  from  it :  the 
Jewish  history  is  the  boldest  of  lies,  the 
most  unscrupulous  of  forgeries,  and,  at  the 


220  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

same  time,  the  most  inexplicable  of  literary 
enigmas,  or  it  is  the  truth,  attested  inwardly 
and  confirmed  outwardly,  as  no  other  ancient 
historical  account  was  ever  attested  in  the 
multiplied  annals  of  the  race . 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

The  Argument  Continued  —  Statistical  Character  op  the 
Scriptures  —  The  Antediluvian  Genealogies  —  The  First 
Obituaries  —  The  Dates  and  Numbers  of  the  Deluge  —  Its 
Graphic  Description  —  The  Gradual  Rising  —  The  Scene  Pic- 
tured by  an  Eye- Witness  —  The  Minutely  Inventive  Style  be- 
longs to  Much  Later  T.mes  —  The  Most  Truthful  of  Narratives 
or  the  Most  Monstrous  of  Lies  —  Subjective  Truthfulness  —  The 
Jewish  Year  —  Its  Early  and  Remarkable  Accuracy  —  More 
Acurate  than  the  Greek  or  Roman  —  The  "Weekly  Division  of 
Time  —  Purely  Shemitic  in  its  Origin. 

In  the  very  beginning  of  Genesis,  in  the 
very  frontispiece,  we  may  say,  of  the  whole 
Scriptures,  we  find  this  statistical  character. 
"And  Adam  lived  an  hundred  and  thirty 
years,  and  begat  a  son  in  his  own  likeness, 
after  his  image,  and  called  his  name  Seth  ; 
and  all  the  days  that  Adam  lived  were  nine 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  and  he  died. 
And  Enoch  lived  sixty  and  five  years,  and 
begat  Methusaleh  ;  and  Methusaleh  lived  an 


222  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

hundred  and  eighty  and  seven  years,  and 
begat  Lamech  ;  and  Methusaleh  lived  after 
he  begat  Lamech  seven  hundred  eighty  and 
two  years,  and  begat  sons  and  daughters  ; 
and  all  the  days  of  Methusaleh  were  nine 
hundred  and  sixty  and  nine  years,  and  he 
died."  And  so  on  through  the  births  and 
deaths  of  this  old  Antediluvian  Patriarchy. 
There  is,  too,  a  moral  lesson  here,  impressive 
and  sad,  and  giving  to  these  dry  numbers 
a  sublime  moral  dignity.  It  is  not  ob- 
trusive, indeed  ;  it  is  not  suspiciously  forced 
upon  the  notice  ;  to  the  dull  reader  these 
details  and  repetitions  may  seem  as  barren 
as  the  fragment  of  Berosus,  which  is  evi- 
dently an  imitation  of  this  older  document  ; 
but  to  the  man  whose  spirit  is  awake,  it 
is  the  solemn  record  of  execution  on  the 
great  judgment  pronounced  in  a  previous 
chapter  ;  it  is  the  commencement  of  that 
long  death  which  our  humanity  has  been 
dying  ever  since.  It  is  the  first  great  obitu- 
ary,   recorded,    not   on    blank,    intervening 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  223 

leaves,  but  "  in  capite  libri"  in  the  beginning 
of  "  the  volume  of  the  book."  It  is  the  title- 
page  to  that  true  history  of  the  world,  writ- 
ten on  the  tombs,  and  preserved  where  all 
else  perishes,  even  in  the  dust  of  the  earth. 

There  is  the  same  character,  though  car- 
ried to  a  still  farther  degree  of  graphic 
minuteness,  in  the  account  of  the  Deluge. 
"We  have  the  exact  year,  the  month,  the  day 
of  the  month,  when  the  great  rain  commenc- 
ed upon  the  earth,  and  Noah  went  into  the 
ark.  Were  ever  the  pictorial  and  the 
statistical  combined  in  so  life-like  a  de- 
scription ? 

"  On  the  self-same  day  entered  Noah, 
and  Shem,  and  Ham,  and  Japhet,  the  sons 
of  Noah,  and  Noah's  wife,  and  the  three 
wives  of  his  sons  with  them,  into  the  ark  ; 
and  the  flood  was  forty  days  upon  the 
earth  ;  and  the  waters  increased  and  bare 
up  the  ark,  and  it  was  lift  up  from  the 
ground  ;  and  the  waters  prevailed  and  were 
increased  greatly  upon  the   earth,   and  the 


224  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ark  went  (^M  walked  forth,  ineq^ero) 
upon  the  face  of  the  waters  ;  and  the  waters 
prevailed  exceedingly  upon  the  earth,  and 
all  the  high  hills  that  were  under  the  whole 
horizon  were  covered  ;  fifteen  cubits  up- 
wards did  the  waters  prevail  after  the  moun- 
tains (or  the  highest  hills)  were  covered. 
And  all  flesh  died  that  moved  upon  the 
earth  ;  and  Xoah  only  remained  alive  and 
they  that  wTere  with  him  in  the  ark  ;  and 
the  waters  prevailed  upon  the  earth  an  hun- 
dred and  fifty  days."  Surely  the  man  who 
first  painted  this  scene  must  have  been  in 
that  ark  when  it  was  "  lifted  up,"  and  went 
walking  forth  upon  the  waters  ;  he  must 
have  been  an  eye-witness  of  that  irresistibly 
rising  wave,  those  disappearing  hills,  all 
ending  at  last  in  that  sky-bounded  waste. 
"  Under  the  whole  heaven" — who  that  has 
any  true  love  or  reverence  for  the  Bible, 
would  raise  an  argument,  on  these  words, 
either  for  or  against  the  absolute  universal- 
ity of  the   deluge,  or  think  of  interpreting 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  225 

the  writer  at  all  by  either  our  modern  ge- 
ography or  our  modern  astronomy  !  It  was 
all  of  earth  he  knew,  or  that  was  known  to 
Moses  after  him.  The  divine  Spirit  that 
employed  his  vivid  conception,  as  well  as 
his  vivid  language,  has  given  it  to  us  as  the 
measure  and  the  assurance  of  his  truthful- 
ness. The  absolute  geographical  extent  is 
to  be  determined  by  other  proofs  and  other 
passages.  But  here  we  have  that  which 
filled  the  writer's  eye  ;  it  was  the  optical 
carried  out  to  the  fullest  extent  of  the  known 
or  the  imagined  ;  and  it  is  just  that  truthful- 
ness which,  in  such  an  account  as  this,  is  of 
the  highest  critical  value.  He  who  deals 
with  it  in  any  other  way,  ruins  one  of  the 
most  precious  evidences  of  the  Scriptures. 
It  will  bear  no  scientific  reconciliation  ;  it 
utterly  rejects  the  aid  of  any  rhetorical 
addition.  We  may  be  chargeable  ourselves, 
to  some  extent,  with  the  very  fault  here  im- 
puted ;  still  are  we  deeply  conscious  that 
any  attempt  to  put  the  account  in  other 
10* 


226  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

language  than  that  of  this  eye-witness,  and 
especially  as  it  lies  in  the  inimitable  Hebrew, 
only  mars  the  picture.  They  are  the  words 
of  that  high  emotion,  that  calm  emotion,  we 
might  say,  that  could  not  bear  exaggeration  ; 
it  is  the  utterance  of  that  clear  spiritual  im- 
pression that  shapes  its  own  first  language, 
never  to  be  improved  by  any  other. 

In  perfect  keeping,  too,  is  the  account  of 
the  subsiding  flood.  Let  the  infidel  look  up 
his  favorite  story  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha, 
and  see,  if  he  is  capable  of  seeing,  the  mighty 
difference  ;  let  the  rationalist  read  over  again 
his  Hindoo  myths  of  the  deluge,  and  be  ut- 
terly ashamed  of  his  comparisons.  "  And 
God  remembered  Noah,  and  every  living 
thing,  and  all  the  cattle  that  was  with  him  in 
the  ark  ;  and  Grod  made  a  wind  to  pass  over 
the  earth,  and  the  waters  assuaged  ;  the  foun- 
tains also  of  the  deep  and  the  windows  of 
heaven  were  stopped,  and  the  rain  from  heav- 
en was  restrained  ;  and  the  waters  returned 
from  off  the  earth  continually;  and  after  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  227 

end  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  days  the  waters 
abated."   ' '  Returned  continually ',  "swi  ^lbn  ' '  to 
go  and  return,"  "  going  and  returning  ;"  such 
is  the  expressive  idiom  of  the  Hebrew  ;  it  is 
most  pictorial  language,  and  denotes  a  sort 
of  ebbing  subsidence  having  its  intervals  of 
standing  and  sinking  until  it  reaches  the  low- 
est and  settled  state.     "  And  the  ark  rested 
in  the  seventh  month,  on  the  seventeenth  day 
of  the  month,  upon  the  highlands  of  Ararat  ; 
And  the  waters  kept  going  and  retiring  r$n, 
y\om   ibant  et  decrescebant ,    until    the   tenth 
month  :  in  the  tenth  month  on  the  first  day 
of  the  month  were  the  tops  of  the  mountains 
seen,"  apparuerunt  cacumina  montium.     The 
utmost  intention  of  plainness  and  simplicity 
cannot  prevent  the  language  from  rising  into 
the  poetical.      "And  it  came  to  pass  at  the 
end  of  forty  days  that  Noah  opened  the  window 
of  the  ark  ;  and  he  sent  forth  a  raven  which 
went  to  and  fro  (Heb.  going  out  and  returning, 
or,  back  and  forth)  until  the  waters  were  dried 
up  from  off  the  earth.     Also,  he  sent  forth  a 


228  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

dove  from  him  to  see  if  the  waters  were 
abated  ;  but  the  dove  found  no  rest  for  the 
sole  of  her  foot,  and  she  returned  unto  him 
in  the  ark,  for  the  waters  were  on  the  face  of 
the  whole  earth  ;  then  he  put  forth  his  hand 
and  took  her,  and  pulled  her  in  unto  hirn 
into  the  ark  ;  and  he  staid  yet  other  seven 
days,  and  again  he  sent  forth  the  dove  out 
of  the  ark  ;  and  the  dove  came  in  to  him 
in  the  evening,  and  lo,  in  her  mouth  was  an 
olive  leaf  plucked  off ;  and  Noah  knew  that 
the  waters  were  abated  from  off  the  earth  ; 
and  he  staid  yet  other  seven  days,  and  sent 
forth  the  dove  which  returned  not  again  unto 
him  any  more.  And  it  came  to  pass  in  the 
six  hundredth  and  first  year,  in  the  first 
month,  the  first  day  of  the  month,  the  waters 
were  dried  up  from  off  the  earth  :  and  Noah 
removed  the  covering  of  the  ark,  and  looked, 
and,  behold,  the  face  of  the  ground  was  dry  ; 
and  on  the  second  month,  on  the  seven  and 
twentieth  day  of  the  month,  was  the  earth 
dried." 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  229 

How  can  any  serious  soul  fail  to  be  struck 
with  this  strange  combination  of  the  minutely 
familiar  and  the  inexpressibly  sublime  ?  To 
think  of  a  man's  deliberately  sitting  down 
thus  consciously  to  forge  all  this  numerical 
exactness,  and  yet  preserving  that  other  aw- 
ful feature  so  inconsistent  with  the  meanness 
and  littleness  of  known  and  intended  lying ! 
For  such,  if  it  be  not  strictly  true,  must  have 
been  the  character  of  this  account  when  first 
written,  unless  thus  filled  in  by  our  supposed 
compilers.  A  wilful  forger,  earlier  or  later, 
could  not  have  so  described  it ;  he  must  have 
betrayed  the  untruthfulness  of  his  position. 
A  mere  wonder-making  traditionist  could  not 
have  given  us  the  story  in  a  manner  so  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  early  Greek  logographer, 
or  Hindoo  mythopceist ;  the  legendary  would 
have  manifested  itself ;  for  that  art  of  fictitious 
writing,  which  could  alone  have  kept  back 
its  untruthful  aspect,  was  not  invented  until 
ages  after,  and  has  only  in  the  latest  times 
arrived  at  its  perfection.    Yet  nothing  in  the 


230  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

most  modern  times,  whether  fictitious  or  real, 
could  surpass  it  in  this  air  of  simple  verity. 
"We  cannot  avoid  being  struck  with  the  un- 
pretending calmness,  the  simple  majesty,  the 
utter  absence  of  the  swelling,  the  pretentious, 
the  wonder-showing,  in  a  narrative  that  re- 
lates such  marvels.  An  account  in  one  of  our 
newspapers  of  an  inundation  of  the  Missis- 
sippi shall  have  ten  times  the  air  of  hyper- 
bole, shall  go  utterly  beyond  it  in  all  those 
turgid  features  of  narration  which  betray  on 
the  part  of  the  writer  the  feeling  that  he  has 
something  very  great  to  tell,  and  an  evident 
delight  in  making  his  readers  share  in  the 
same  emotion.  For  a  truthful  man,  thus 
perusing  the  account  of  the  flood,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  divest  the  mind,  at  least  for  the  mo- 
ment, of  the  idea  of  the  substantial  subjective 
truthfulness  of  the  story  itself.  We  mean  by 
this,  its  perfect  honesty  as  reflecting  the  hon- 
esty of  the  first  narrator,  however  defective 
he  might  be  in  science,  or  however  mistaken 
in  regard  both  to  the  natural  and  supernatu- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  231 

ral  causality.  He  narrates  things  as  he  saw 
them  and  felt  them  ;  he  gives  us  truly  the 
appearances  and  the  emotions,  the  latter  not 
as  subjects  of  introverted  description,  but  as 
exhibited  in  the  style  and  language  called 
out  by  the  phenomena.  This  is  enough  for 
our  present  argument  ;  when  it  is  complete 
and  carried  throughout  the  Bible,  then  let 
any  one  resist  the  impression  of  the  super- 
natural, if  he  finds  it  easy  to  do  so.  But  in 
reading  this  story,  so  simply  yet  so  grandly 
told,  we  are  impressed,  as  by  a  real  passing 
scene,  with  the  belief  that  there  actually  was 
such  a  man  as  Noah  in  the  early  world,  a 
very  righteous,  honest  man,  who  had  on  his 
mind,  whether  deceived  in  his  idea  of  inspi- 
ration or  not,  a  real  conviction  that  there 
was  coming  such  a  flood  of  waters  over  the 
whole  known  land,  that,  under  the  influence 
of  this  belief,  he  built  a  vessel,  that  he  took 
into  it  his  family  and  the  known  animals  of 
the  surrounding  country,  that  in  all  this  he 
religiously  regarded  himself  as  prompted  by 


2o2  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

a  divine  power,  that  the  waters  did  come, 
that  they  rose  gradually  as  is  so  graphically 
described,  that  they  as  gradually  abated,  that 
he  sent  forth  the  dove,  that  she  returned 
with  an  olive  leaf  in  the  evening  as  is  so  touch- 
ingly  told,  that  he  "  put  forth  his  hand  and 
took  her  and  pulled  her  in  unto  him  in  the 
ark,"  that  "  he  waited  other  seven  days,"  and 
finally  came  forth  from  the  ark  on  that  very 
month,  and  day  of  the  month,  of  which  he 
had  made  so  careful  a  register  for  those  who 
were  preserved  with  him,  and  for  the  sake 
of  those  who  should  be  after  him  upon  the 
earth.  How  monstrous  the  lie  if  it  be  not 
the  honest  truth  !  We  mean  not,  how  mon- 
strously false  in  its  marvellous,  but  in  its 
minute  dates  and  details,  in  those  circum- 
stantial lies  that  must  have  been  all  along 
accompanied  with  such  a  consciousness  of 
falsehood  on  the  part  of  the  narrator.  The 
marvellous  might  have  grown  from  some 
traditionary  small  beginning,  and  the  first 
writer  been  very  honest  in  his  belief  of  it : 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  233 

we  can  easily  understand  that :  it  would  be 
no  impeachment  of  the  logographer's  truthful- 
ness, but  rather  a  proof  of  it,  had  he  allowed 
the  wonderful  to  make  some  increase  of  mag- 
nitude in  his  own  mind,  and  thus  been  led 
to  bring  into  the  narrative  rather  more  of  the 
supernatural  than  it  possessed  when  it  came 
to  him.  Such  a  natural  growth  is  easy  to  be 
conceived  ;  but  the  other  idea  is  quite  incred- 
ible,— we  mean,  except  on  the  supposition 
of  its  being  an  absolute  and  entire  forgery, 
where  invention  becomes  natural  and  predom- 
inant. Traditionists,  or  the  chroniclers  of 
traditions,  do  not  thus  conspire.  They  may 
enlarge,  but  they  do  not  thus  minutely  fill 
up  ;  for  the  very  consciousness  of  what  they 
are  doing  must  destroy  their  belief  in  the 
story,  and  take  away  from  them  that  charac- 
ter of  subjective  truthfulness  which  the  sup- 
position demands.  The  human  inventive 
faculty  may,  indeed,  go  a  great  way,  but  it 
is  not  employed  in  such  a  manner,  and  from 
such  a  motive.     Its  end  is  amusement,  some- 


234  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

times,  the  exhibition  of  its  power,  or  there 
is  some  collateral  purpose  which  cannot  be 
conceived  of  in  such  a  case  as  this.  The 
minutely  inventive  fictitious  style  of  writing 
is  an  art  of  slow  growth.  From  such  clumsy 
beginnings  as  we  find  in  the  earliest  efforts, 
more  unnatural  in  fact  than  the  wild  mythi- 
cal legends  that  aim  at  no  such  character, 
they  require  ages  to  bring  them  to  that  easy 
finish  which  is  now  sought  for  in  this  kind 
of  composition.  In  fact,  the  Defoe  style 
belongs  to  the  very  latest  period  of  the  world's 
literature,  it  is  a  species  of  Flemish  painting 
that  comes  after  the  great  old  masters  ;  it  is  an 
introversion  of  human  powers  seeking  a  new 
occupation  when  the  sublimely  truthful,  or 
the  simple  in  history,  as  well  as  the  sublimely 
marvellous,  had  ceased  to  charm.  The  sup- 
position that  it  existed  in  the  days  of  Moses, 
or  for  a  thousand  years  after  Moses,  is  more 
incredible  than  any  thing  for  which  it  may 
be  brought  to  account.  It  is  utterly  incon- 
sistent with  any  feeling,  or  motive,  or  state 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  235 

of  mind,  that  we  can  imagine  for  those  early 
days.  It  must  have  a  consciousness  of  false- 
hood staring  it  in  the  face  with  every  unit, 
and  ten,  and  hundred,  it  employs,  and  this 
debasing  effect  is  directly  at  war  with  those 
sublime  religious  conceptions,  whether  true 
or  false,  that  are  mingled  with  it. 

Every  reader  of  the  Bible  must  be  familiar 
with  the  great  number  of  other  examples 
that  might  be  given  of  this  same  statistical 
character.  There  is  the  Jewish  year,  pre- 
senting quite  a  question  for  the  learned,  if 
they  will  but  carefully  look  at  it.  The 
adjustment  of  the  current  annual  time  had 
a  difficulty  for  the  early  days,  of  which  we 
can  form  some  conception  when  we  bear 
in  mind  that  our  familiar  almanac  knowl- 
edge has  been,  in  fact,  the  growth  of  cen- 
turies. But  this  unscientific  people  seem  to 
have  settled  this  problem,  at  least  for  all 
practical  approximations,  or  to  have  had  it 
settled  for  them,  even  before  the  Exodus. 
Ever  after,  the  calendar  of  their  months  and 


236  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

festal  seasons  seems  to  have  had  almost  the 
modern  accuracy,  while  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man year  remained  for  centuries  later  in 
great  confusion,  and  the  Egyptian,  if  we 
may  judge  from  what  is  said  by  Herodotus, 
was  hardly  in  any  better  state.  The  inter- 
calation of  five  days,  the  br3t  method  then 
known,  must  have  produced  a  disorder  of 
nearly  a  month  in  a  century.  The  Israelites 
had  certainly  some  better  way.  The  learn- 
ed Arabian  Makrizi,  who  goes  very  fully 
into  the  matter,  gives  us  an  account  of  the 
methods  employed  by  the  later  Rabbins,  but 
these  could  not  have  produced  the  remark- 
able accuracy  that  must  have  existed  in  their 
festival-keeping  before  the  captivity.  A 
mere  observation  of  the  new  moons  would 
not  have  kept  their  time  from  floating  if 
there  had  not  been  some  method  of  fixing 
the  solar  year,  whether  from  astronomical 
means,  or  some  unerring  signs  of  vegetation. 
If  this  calendar  accuracy,  as  we  may  call 
it,    had    stood    out   by   itself,    an     isolated 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  237 

characteristic,  there  might  be  some  plausi- 
bility in  regarding  it  as  a  forgery  of  a  later 
age.  But  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  whole 
style  of  the  Jewish  records.  It  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  genealogical,  festival-observ- 
ing, census-taking  character  of  the  nation, 
from  the  days  when  Jacob  and  his  seventy 
descendants  went  down  into  Egypt,  until 
the  time  when  the  families  were  numbered 
on  their  return  from  Babylon.  The  antiquity 
of  all  their  public  days  stands  or  falls  with 
it.  There  is  no  place  where  we  can  stop  and 
say,  here  ceases  the  mythical,  the  unchrono- 
logical,  and  here  the  chronological  com- 
mences. From  the  beginning,  from  the 
first  intimation  of  a  weekly  division  of  time, 
from  the  first  mention  of  a  Sabbath,  and  its 
subsequent  recognition  in  the  heart  of  the 
national  code,  it  is  all  of  a  piece.  Creation 
is  recorded  diurnally  and  chronologically, 
whether  we  suppose  it  to  be  on  the  greater 
or  the  lesser  scale  of  the  world-times.  One 
great  earthly  use   assigned  in  the   appoint- 


238  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

ment  of  the  celestial  luminaries  is,  that 
"they  may  be  for  signs,*  and  for  days,  and 
for  years."  Besides  the  general  divisions  of 
time  produced  by  the  sun  and  moon,  and 
which  were  employed,  with  more  or  less 
accuracy,  by  all  nations,  the  weekly  division 
is  acknowledged  to  have  been  purely  Shemitic 
in  its  origin.  It  is  so  admitted  by  Humboldt 
in  his  Kosmos.  The  hebdomadal  period, 
though  there  are  intimations  of  it  in  other 
ancient  writings,  is  found  in  the  Bible  as  in 
its  native  place.  The  fact  is  accompanied  by 
its  reason,  and  both  are  treated  as  well 
known  from  the  beginning.  In  the  event 
there  recorded  it  had  its  origin,  and  as  there 
is  nothing  astronomical  in  its  character,  there 
could  have  been  no  other  foundation  for 
such  a  division  than  the  early  knowledge  or 
announcement  of  the  great  fact  with  which 
the  Scriptures  connect  it. 

*  Gen.  1  :  14,  eje]»,  signs — marked  periods — epochs. 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

The  Argument  Comtinued  —  Proper  Names  —  The  Jews  a  Cen- 
sus-taking People  —  Their  Minute  Ritual  —  The  Offerings  of 
the  Heads  of  Tribes,  Numbers  VII.  — The  Legal  or  Documen- 
tary Style  of  the  Record  —  Why  this  Style,  in  all  Languages, 
tends  to  Prolixity— A  Solemn  Memorial  —  Wherein  it  differs 
from  the  Style  both  of  Legend  and  of  History  —  Significance  of 
the  Names  mentioned,  Numbers  VII.  —  Great  Number  of  Prop- 
er Names  in  the  Bible  —  Surpassing  those  of  our  Classical 
Dictionaries  —  Their  Significance  a  Sign  of  the  National  Charac- 
ter—  Compared  with  the  Proper  Isames  of  the  Greek  —  Both 
Significant,  but  in  how  different  a  Way! — The  one  mainly 
Warlike,  the  other  mainly  Religious  —  Compounded  with  the 
Divine  Names  Jah  and  El  —  Include  so  generally  the  Ideas  of 
Promise,  Covenant  and  Election- — They  ever  remind  the 
Bearers  of  the  Early  Patriarchal  Times  and  the  National  Seclusion 
—  Named  after  God— Argument  from  Numbers  VII. — The 
Religious  and  Spiritual  Character  of  the  Days  of  the  Bondage  — 
Geographical  Accuracy  —  Knowledge  on  the  Spot,  Knowledge 
at  the  Time. 

In  no  other  people  of  antiquity,  if  we  except 
the  later  Romans,  is  there  anything  like  that 
exact  census-taking  which  distinguishes  the 
Jewish  chronicles,— that  enrolling,  not  of 
individuals  only,  but  of  ages,  and  classes, 
and  tribes,    and   families,   and    priesthoods, 


240  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

and  Levitical  services, — those  exact  inven- 
tories of  all  things  required  in  the  ritual  and 
festal  worship.  Along  with  this,  there  is 
something  well  calculated  to  arrest  our  at- 
tention in  the  proper  names  of  persons,  so 
astonishing  in  their  number  and'  their  signifi- 
cance. Has  the  reader  ever  thought  how 
many  more  such  names  are  to  be  found  in 
this  compressed  history  than  in  all  the 
poetry  and  history  of  classical  antiquity ! 
Their  strange  meanings,  too  !  It  is  not  the 
mere  fact  of  their  having  a  meaning  that  is 
wonderful,  for  this  has  been  the  case  more 
or  less  among  all  people  ;  it  is  the  peculiar 
aspect  of  their  significance,  so  deeply  relig- 
ious, so  intimately  and  almost  universally 
associated  with  the  divine  names  and  divine 
things.  For  an  illustration  of  this  census 
character,  as  exhibited  in  almost  all  the 
particulars  here  mentioned,  we  might  take 
the  Seventh  chapter  of  Numbers.  Let  any 
one  study  it  carefully  as  it  lies  among  its 
contexts,  and  reconcile  it  if  he  can  with  the 


IX    THE    SCRIPTURES.  241 

theory  of  its  having  been  made  seven  hun- 
dred years  after  the  professed  times,  whether 
as  a  document  entirely  new,  or  as  a  tradition- 
ary compilation.  After  the  long  and  ex- 
ceedingly minute  accounts  of  the  tabernacle 
and  its  furniture,  the  ark,  the  altar,  the 
sacrifice,  with  all  the  institutions  of  Jewish 
worship,  we  have  what  may  be  called  the 
solemn  national  and  tribal  inauguration  of 
the  whole  service.  Each  head  of  a  tribe, 
his  name  given  and  that  of  his  father,  just 
as  we  find  these  same  names  in  their  genea- 
logical records  elsewhere  preserved,  brings 
his  representative  offering  of  silver  and  gold 
and  sacrificial  animals,  all  precisely  enumer- 
ated, with  the  measures  and  values  of  each. 
"And  the  Princes  offered  for  dedicating  of 
the  altar  in  the  day  that  it  was  anointed, 
even  the  Princes  offered  their  offering  before 
the  altar.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses, 
they  shall  offer  their  offering,  each  Prince  on 
his  day,  for  the  dedicating  of  the  altar.  And 
he  that  offered  his  offering  the  first  day  was 
11 


242  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Nahshon  the  son  of  Amminadab  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah  :  and  his  offering  was  one  silver 
charger,  the  weight  thereof  was  one  hundred 
and  thirty  shekels,  one  silver  bowl  of  seventy 
shekels,  after  the  shekel  of  the  sanctuary  ; 
both  of  them  were  full  of  fine  flour  mingled 
with  oil  for  a  meat  offering  :  one  spoon  of 
ten  shekels  of  gold  full  of  incense  ;  one 
young  bullock,  one  ram,  one  lamb  of  the 
first  year  for  a  burnt  offering  ;  one  kid  of 
the  goats  for  a  sin  offering  :  and  for  a  sacri- 
fice of  peace  offerings,  two  oxen,  five  rams, 
five  he  goats,  five  lambs  of  the  first  year  : 
this  was  the  offering  of  Nahshon  the  son  of 
Amminadab.  On  the  second  clay  Xethaneel 
the  son  of  Zuar  Prince  of  Issachar  did  offer," 
&c.  In  this  very  peculiar  document,  the 
very  same  language,  with  merely  a  diversity 
of  the  proper  names  that  fill  the  intervals, 
is  repeated  twelve  times  without  abbreviation 
or  any  attempt  at  compression.  It  might  be 
thought  a  very  tedious  paper  were  it  not 
for  the  ideas  it  suggests  to  the  thoughtful 


IN    THE    SCRIPT  UEES.  243 

reader.  It  has  the  diction  of  a  solemn 
memorial.  Viewed  in  that  light  there  is  a 
reason  in  the  repetition.  It  is  that  demand 
of  emphasis  which  among  all  nations,  ancient 
or  modern,  has  given  an  air  of  prolixity  to 
the  law  style,  as  we  call  it,  or  documental 
language.  We  see  something  of  it  in  the 
verbal  covenanting  of  earlier  times,  as  be- 
tween Abraham  and  Abimelech,  and  Abraham 
and  the  sons  of  Heth  in  the  purchase  of  Mac- 
phelah.  Here  it  becomes  very  striking.  In- 
stead of  all  these  precisely  similar  statements 
being  thrown  together  with  a  general  cap- 
tion, or  all  the  later  ones  referred  to  the 
first, — which  would  have  been  as  clear,  one 
would  think,  and  much  more  convenient, — 
each  stands  separate  and  full,  so  that  each 
tribe,  and  the  descendants  of  each  tribe,  may 
see  their  ancestor's  name  written  out  dis- 
tinctly, with  his  precise  offering,  the  number, 
measure,  and  value,  all  put  down  by  itself, 
as  though  he  were  the  principal  name,  as  he 
is  to  them  the  most  interesting  name,  in  all 


244  THE    DIVINE     HUMAN 

the  roll.  Now  even  aside  from  all  this  ap- 
pearance of  circumstantiality,  no  one  could 
regard  it  as  a  tradition  handed  down  in 
memory,  or  made,  wholly  or  partially,  so 
many  centuries  after.  It  would  have  had, 
in  the  one  case,  the  style  of  legend,  in  the 
other,  that  of  history  ;  and  both  these  are 
different  from  that  of  memorial  or  attestation. 
If  it  is  impossible  to  regard  it  as  a  forgery, 
then  let  one  try  the  other  idea  of  its  being  a 
tradition, — so  precise  a  thing  coming  down 
with  all  its  names  and  measures,  and  its  ex- 
act order  preserved  for  centuries.  If  he 
finds  this  too  hard  of  belief,  then  let  him 
take  this  Seventh  of  Numbers,  and,  viewing 
it  as  a  true  memorial,  made  at  the  time,  let 
him  study  it  carefully  in  its  connections  be- 
fore and  after,  and  see  how  much  he  is  com- 
pelled to  take  with  it, — in  other  words,  how 
much  throughout  the  Pentateuch  must  be 
held  as  genuine,  if  this  is  genuine,  how  much 
of  all  those  other  books,  away  back  to  Gen- 
esis, must  be  taken  as  a  studied  preparation, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  245 

all  made  to  suit,  in  fact,  if  this  be  a  forgery, — 
and  then  how  some  of  these  other  passages 
necessitate  still  the  same  thought  in  respect 
to  others,  and  so  on,  throughout  these  strange 
writings  so  fragmentary  in  some  of  their  ap- 
pearances and  yet  found  to  be,  on  closer  ex- 
amination, so  wondrously  coherent.  If  this 
document  is  a  reality,  made  at  the  time,  then 
is  the  preparatory  work  and  ritual  all  a  re- 
ality, then  is  that  wilderness  life  a  reality, 
then  is  that  solemn  law-giving  a  reality,  Sinai 
is  a  reality,  and  so  is  the  Exodus,  and  the 
bondage,  for  they  are  all  commemorated  here 
or  in  the  closely-connected  antecedents  ;  and 
then  Moses  is  a  reality,  and  Joseph,  and  the 
Fathers  ;  then,  above  all,  are  the  old  prom- 
ises a  reality,  and  the  "Covenant"  a  re- 
ality,— for  they  pervade  every  part  as  the 
meaning  and  life  of  the  whole.  Let  the 
reader  think,  too,  what  an  immense  amount 
of  statistical  fact  must  have  been  carried 
down  floating  in  the  memory  if  this  were 
so    carried    down,    and    how    different    that 


246  THE    DIVINE    HUH  AN 

Jewish  memory  mast  have  been  from  the 
magnifying,  coloring,  myth-making  memory 
of  all  other  ancient  nations.  Let  any  one 
thus  study  the  passage  in  connection  with 
these  ideas,  and  he  will  find,  we  think,  that 
there  is  but  one  conceivable  solution  of  the 
problem. 

We  cannot  pass  over  this  chapter  without 
dwelling  briefly  on  some  striking  thoughts 
presented  by  its  proper  names.  To  set  them 
in  their  strongest  light  we  give  them  in  the 
original  and  with  their  translations,  though 
of  the  latter  it  must  be  said  that  we  can  only 
be  certain  of  the  two  fundamental  ideas  that 
enter  into  each  name,  the  manner  of  connect- 
ing them  being  that  about  which  philologists 
may  differ.  Thus  Eliab  has  the  two  ideas, 
God  and  father  ;  but  we  cannot  certainly 
decide  whether  the  significance  intended 
was  "  God  my  Father"  or  "  God  of  my  fa- 
ther" Almost  every  name  in  this  list  has  a 
clear  meaning.  There  is  first,  of  the  tribe 
of 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES, 


247 


Judah,  \TO'ra     Nahshon, Blessed  Omen, 

son  of 
ama?     Amminadab,  The 

Princely  : 
Issachar,  bajw     Nethaneel,    God     hath 

given,  son  of 
w*     Zuar,  The  Little   One, 
the  Lowly  : 
Zebulon,  airtjj     Eliab,  God  my  Father  : 

Reuben,  w^Jj     Elizur,  God  my  Rock, 

son  of 
wvro     Shecleur,  the  Almighty 
my  Light  : 
Simeon,  ^k^p     Shelumiel,     God      my 

Peace,  son  of 
tf^m     Znrishadclai,     The    Al- 
mighty my  Rock  : 
Gad,  t|9#»     Eliasaph,  God  will  in- 

crease, son  of 
Saw     Deuel,  Calling  on  God  : 
Ephraim        *kpsSa     Elishama,  My  God  will 

hear,  son  of 
was     Ammihud,  My  People, 
—Glory  : 


248 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 


Mauasseh,       ba^a     Qamlicl,  God  will  rec- 
ompense, son  of 
TOirifi     Pedahzur,  Rock  —  Re- 
demption : 
Asher,  $&?&     Pageel,  God — Interces- 

sion, son  of 
ffi?  Okran,  Trouble  or  Sor- 
row. 
What  a  religious  aspect  do  they  possess ! 
Bad  men  may  have  godly  names  ;  bad  parents 
may  give  their  children  godly  names ;  but 
their  general  prevalence  does  prove  that  not 
many  generations  back  there  must  have  been 
a  somewhat  generally  diffused  spirit  of  piety, 
or  some  strongly  theistic  national  ideas,  to 
account  for  them.  So  among  the  Greeks, 
cowards  may  have  had  warlike  titles,  but  the 
general  prevalence  of  corresponding  appella- 
tions is  very  rationally  taken  as  a  proof,  if 
there  were  no  other,  that  the  Athenians  were 
a  military  and  naval  people.  AY  hat  then  is 
the  just  inference  from  the  Jewish  names 
as  compared  with   the  Greek  and   Roman  ? 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  249 

What  is  the  real  historical  significance  of  their 
deeply  religious  character,  their  strong  the- 
istic,  or  rather  monotheistic  aspect,  their 
continual  expression  of  faith  and  hope,  their 
so  frequent  allusions  to  the  ideas  of  covenant 
and  redemption  ?  The  hypothesis  of  the  ra- 
tionalist utterly  fails  here  ;  his  data  are  alto- 
gether too  narrow  to  account  for  the  strange 
difference  in  this  apparently  so  simple  a  mat- 
ter of  naming.  And  why  too,  we  may  ask, 
do  so  many  of  these  appellations  end  in  El 
and  Jah,  ever  calling  up  the  two  great  divine 
names  with  their  most  holy  ideas  ?  Let  the 
reader  ponder  well  the  fact,  and  see  if  he  can 
find  any  other  reason  for  this  national  seal, 
this  naming  after  the  Lord,  as  we  may  call 
it,  than  the  great  all-explaining  fact  that 
they  were,  indeed,  "  a  chosen  people,'7  an 
"elect  people,''  whom,  for  high  and  world- 
wide reasons,  God  had  taken  as  his  own 
"when  he  separated  the  sons  of  Adam  and 
gave  the  nations  their  inheritance." 

The  heads  of  tribes  mentioned  Numbers 
11* 


250  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

vii.,  must  have  been  born  in  the  days  of  the 
bondage.  Now  we  generally  associate  with 
that  period  the  ideas  of  religious  or  spiritual 
decline.  They  are  thought  to  have  been  a 
vile,  ungrateful,  murmuring  people,  who  had 
forgotten,  or  had  never  known,  their  ances- 
tral history,  and  how  very  religious  it  was. 
But  here  is  a  little  beam  of  light  thrown  back 
upon  that  dark  passage  in  chronolog}^  In 
the  later  days  of  the  bondage  they  may  have 
become,  indeed,  debased.  Such  would  be  a 
natural  effect  of  their  servile  condition.  But 
in  the  times  that  followed  the  death  of  Joseph, 
there  may  have  been,  there  probably  was, 
much  religious  feeling  among  them.  This 
style  of  naming  points  to  such  a  period. 
Jehovak  my  Light,  the  Redeemer  my  Rock, 
God  the  Intercessor,  or  He  who  intervenes  for 
relief  in  the  day  of  trouble, — the  Gift  of  God, 
the  Son  of  the  Lowly  :- — Such  appellations 
might  have  become  matters  of  formality,  as 
is  doubtless  the  case  often  with  names  that 
have  come  down  from  a  Puritan  ancestry,  but 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  251 

they  had  their  origin  in  the  spirit  and  re- 
membrance of  the  old  never  to  be  forgotten 
promises.    There  is  faith  in  them  somewhere, 
such  faith  as  Paul  sets  forth  in  his  long  list, 
Heb.  xi.,  such  faith  as  was  counted  "  to  them 
for  righteousness."     They  are  connected,  we 
say,  with  the  divine  appellations  as  seals  of 
the  national  "covenant/'  as  a  standing  me- 
morial,   handed    clown    from   generation    to 
generation,  that  "  this  was  the  people  whose 
God,"  whose  El  or  Mighty  One,  "  was  Jeho- 
vah."    They  came  from  men  who  remem- 
bered  the    Preserver  of  Joseph,  who   had 
heard  of  the  visits  of  Angels,  the  dream  of 
Bethel,  the  Hope  of  Jacob,  the  Fear  of  Isaac, 
the  Faith  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  the  Cove- 
nant, who  had  been  their  fathers'  God,  and 
who  had  given  them  those  glorious  promises, 
uneffaceable  by  the  bondage  of  generations, 
that  in  them  and  their  seed  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  were  to  be  blessed.     Such  must 
have  been  their  source.    Or  will  the  "  ration- 
alist "  rather  seek  the  ground  of  these  ideas, 


252  THE     DIVINE    II  I' MAN 

so  pure  and  holy,  so  full  of  hope,  of  simple 
yet  majestic  faith,  in  the  monstrous  symbol- 
ism of  old  Egypt  ?  Were  they  seminated  in 
that  same  Nilotic  bed  so  prolific  even  then 
in  those  physical  and  spiritual  deformities 
which  reached  the  consummation  of  all  im- 
purity in  the  unclean  worship  of  Osiris  and 
the  dog  Anubis  ? 

There  is  the  same  peculiarity  in  the  names 
of  places,  in  the  statement  of  distances  and 
directions.  If  it  be  all  a  compilation,  how 
vast  must  have  been  the  knowledge  of  these 
compilers  !  The  strictest  research  of  modern 
times,  had  they  enjoyed  the  benefit,  could 
not  have  given  them  an  ethnological  and 
geographical  accuracy  so  perfect  that  the 
most  learned  criticism  fails  to  detect  a  mis- 
nomer or  an  anachronism.  It  could  not  be 
so,  unless  it  were  taken  from  the  life.  It  is 
knowledge  on  the  spot,  knowledge  at  the  time, 
and  yet,  in  some  cases,  showing  such  a  his- 
torical relation,  not  simply  to  later,  but  to 
the  latest  times,  even  to  our  time,  and  times 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  253 

beyond  it,  that  it  must  have  been  the  dual 
work  of  an  eye-witness  writing  for  the  then 
present,  yet  guided  by  a  higher  mind  that 
looked  far  down  into  the  remotest  future. 
There  is  a  peculiar  clearness  in  the  giving  of 
marked  chronological  periods,  whose  impor- 
tance, though  simply  Jewish  at  the  time,  is 
nowT  seen  to  be  so  closely  connected  with  the 
general  chronology  of  all  history.  Thus  we 
have  the  precise  date  of  the  building  of  Sol- 
omon's Temple,  and  the  interval  between  it 
and  the  Exodus !  It  comes  in  most  naturally, 
and  in  strictest  keeping  with  the  solemnity 
of  the  transaction.  Doubtless  there  had  been 
a  most  thorough  examination,  for  that  pur- 
pose, of  all  known  records,  and  of  those 
tribal  and  family  genealogies  in  the  keeping 
of  which  the  whole  history  of  the  Jews  shows 
them  to  have  been  so  exact.  But  this  date, 
though  so  strictly  national,  becomes  an  epoch 
from  which  the  history  of  the  world  locks 
both  back  and  forward  ;  whilst  from  its  con- 
nection with  Tyre,  and  the  reign  of  Hiram, 


254  THE    DI V I N  E    II  0  M  A  N  . 

it  becomes  also  one  of  the  noteworthy  side 
points  from  which  we  connect  the  separate 
and  secluded  Jewish,  with  the  world's  chro- 
nology. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

Argument  from  the  Natural  continued  —  the  boldest  of  for- 
geries, or  wholly  true  —  Illustrations  from  the  Prophets  — 
Isaiah's  Vision,  "  in  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  "  —  Natural- 
ness of  this  Mnemonic  Date  —  Why  the  Prophet  should  remem- 
ber it  —  Peculiar  History  of  Uzziah,  the  Leper  King  —  Dates  of 
the  Prophetic  Visions  —  The  Day,  the  Month,  and  the  Year  — 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel.  Argument  from  these  Facts  —  The 
Wholesale  Forgery  easier  of  Belief  than  this  minute  Filling  up  — 
Would  betray  a  Consciousness  of  Falsehood  inconsistent  with 
any  subjective  Truthfulness  —  Driven  to  the  First  Hypothesis  — 
Comparison  with  Homer  —  The  Homeric  Truthfulness  —  Why 
does  it  not  also  prove  the  Homeric  Supernatural  —  Difference 
between  the  Homeric  and  the  Bible  Supernatural  —  Parallel  be- 
tween the  Greeks  and  Jews  —  What  necessary  to  make  it  com- 
plete —  The  Greek  Zeus  and  the  Hebrew  Jehovah  —  The  Greek 
Idea  of  Fate,  and  the  Jewish  Ideas  of  Covenant  and  Election  — 
The  Greek  Oracles,  the  Hebrew  Messiah  —  The  Hebrews  a 
World-nation,  The  Greeks  had  no  World-idea. 

Further  illustrations  of  this  statistical  char- 
acter we  find  in  the  reigns  of  the  Kings,  and 
in  the  dates  of  remarkable  events  as  referred 
to  some  striking  time  or  fact  in  those  reigns  ; 
the  truthful  impression  being,  in  most  cases, 
made  stronger  by  the  informal  and  inciden- 


256  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

tal  manner  of  their  introduction.  In  dry 
history  this  style  of  reference,  or  incidental 
date-giving,  would  not  so  much  surprise  us  ; 
but  we  meet  with  it  in  the  very  visions  of  the 
Prophets.  "In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah 
died,"  says  Isaiah,  "I  saw  the  Lord  sitting 
upon  a  throne  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his 
train  filled  the  temple.  Above  it  stood  the 
seraphim,  and  they  cried,  one  to  the  other, 
saying  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  is  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory."  Let  any 
one  have  his  mind  impressed  as  it  ought  to 
be  impressed  with  this  seraphic  glory  ;  let 
him  think  of  the  high  state  of  soul  necessary 
even  for  the  conception  of  such  a  vision  with 
its  air  of  ineffable  holiness,  and  then,  if  he  can, 
connect  it,  and  its  inseparable  associations, 
with  that  meanest  of  all  falsehood,  the  petty 
circumstantial  lie.  But  take  away  this  re- 
volting thought  (though  necessary  to  the  idea 
of  a  mere  filled  up  compilation)  and  every 
thing  lies  before  us  in  grand  consistency. 
The  date  mentioned  is  the  last  one  that  would 


IN    THE    SCltlPTUHKS.  257 

have  been  selected  by  a  forger,  or  guessed  by 
a  compiler,  to  give  a  mnemonic  importance  to 
any  incident  ;  but  to  Isaiah  himself  it  had  a 
mournful  interest.  "  It  was  in  the  year  that 
King  Uzziah  died," — that  old  leper-stricken 
king,  who  had  so  long  "  lived  in  a  separate 
house,"  where,  "free  among  the  dead,"  he 
had  poured  forth  his  sorrows  in  that  mournful 
88th  Psalm  so  strikingly  descriptive  of  his  sad 
condition. (8)  His  passing  away,  at  last,  would 
be  a  much  more  eventful  remembrance  to 
the  Prophet  than  to  the  nation  at  large  ; 
for  he  had  long  been  civilly  dead.  Dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  his  long  reign  of  fifty 
and  two  years,  he  was  entirely  cut  off 
from  public  business,  and  "  Jotham  his  son 
was  Regent  over  the  king's  house,  judging 
the  people  of  the  land."  The  superseded 
father  must  have  been  nearly  forgotten  by 
the  multitude,  and  his  death  and  hasty  un- 
royal burial  could  have  made  but  little  im- 
pression upon  their  minds.  But  Isaiah  had 
been  his  counsellor,  sometimes  his  reprover  ; 


258  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

lie  had  written  the  history  of  his  earlier  active 
life.  He  had  thought  much  of  the  old  mon- 
arch,— of  his  better  days,  when  "  he  sought 
the  Lord  and  God  made  him  to  prosper," — 
of  his  more  peaceful  days,  ':  when  he  digged 
wells,  and  had  cattle  in  the  low  country,  and 
viue  -dressers  upon  the  mountains,  for  he  loved 
husbandly,"  —  of  his  grand,  warlike  days, 
when  "  he  fought  with  the  Philistines,  and 
brake  down  the  wall  of  Gath,  and  strength- 
ened Jerusalem  with  towers,  and  smote  the 
Arabians  that  dwelt  in  Gur-baal,  and  built 
Eloth,  and  spread  his  name  and  power  even 
to  the  entering  in  of  Egypt."  He  had  often 
pictured,  if  he  could  not  visit,  him  in  his  lone 
leper-house  ;  he  called  to  mind  that  offence 
against  the  divine  ceremonial  holiness  for 
which  he  had  been  smitten  with  unapproach- 
able impurity  ;  and  it  was  in  the  year  so  well 
remembered  from  all  these  sad  and  humbling 
associations,  the  year  when  this  old  forgotten 
monarch  "  slept,"  at  last,  "  with  his  fathers," 
that  Isaiah  had  that  vision  of  ineffable  holi- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  259 

ness,  too  bright  for  impure  eyes  to  see,  for 
"  unclean  lips  to  tell."  The  vision  is  a  reality; 
that  is,  the  Prophet  did  see  the  Throne,  the 
Glory,  and  the  burning  Seraphim,  whether 
it  were  from  a  divine  afflatus  or  his  own  in- 
ward rapt  enthusiasm.  We  are  not  afraid 
thus  to  state  the  case,  because  deeply  con- 
vinced that  one  who  can  thus  receive  fully 
the  subjective,  will  find  himself  unable  to 
resist  the  belief  of  the  absolute  truthfulness. 
The  vision  is  a  reality  ;  the  Prophet  is  a 
reality,  and  then  the  dying  king  is  a  reality  ; 
Uzziah's  reign  is  a  reality,  and  then  that 
which  made  it  what  it  was,  even  the  reign 
of  "  Amaziah  his  father,  whose  mother's  name 
was  Jehoaddan  of  Jerusalem/'  that,  too,  was 
a  reality,  and  the  reign  before  it  was  a  reality, 
and  so  on.  For  there  is  no  place  where  we  can 
stop,  until  we  find  the  consistency  of  all  sub- 
sequent Jewish  history,  the  seminal  elements 
of  its  strength  and  weakness,  in  the  reigns 
of  David  and  Saul,  and  the  events  of  those 
times  all  prepared  by  the  events  before  them, 


260  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

and  so  on,  until  we  come  up  to  the  recorded 
life  of  him  who  first  wrote  in  his  book,  or 
received  from  older  books,  that  "  in  the  be- 
ginning God  created  the  Heavens  and  the 
earth." 

•  And  so  is  it  with  the  Prophets  throughout. 
They  keep  a  diary  of  their  visions,  and  if  it 
is  false,  it  is  far  more  false,  more  incredibly 
false,  than  either  their  rapt  subjective  states 
or  their  wild  harangues.  Jeremiah  and  Eze- 
kiel  manifest  this  trait  more  strikingly  than 
Isaiah.  Everywhere  do  these  seers  record 
the  dates,  the  year,  the  month,  the  day  of 
the  month,  the  attending  chronological  cir- 
cumstances of  the  burthens  and  messages 
with  which  as  they  allege  they  have  been 
commissioned  by  the  Lord.  If  these  dates 
are  put  in  by  themselves,  then  is  it  all,  sub- 
jectively, one  harmonious  consistent  picture 
of  life.  If  supposed  to  be  put  in  by  com- 
pilers, long  after  the  times  of  the  prophetic 
visions,  then  there  is  no  reason  for  it,  no 
meaning  in  it.     It  is  not  only  incredible  but 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  261 

absurd.  It  destroys  its  own  credit,  and  the 
credit  of  that  which  it  would  attest.  It  is 
an  easier  theory  that  every  word  of  the  Pro- 
phetic writings  had  been  forged.  If  that  is 
incredible,  then  this  is  most  incredible.  There 
is  but  one  other  supposition  :  the  dates  and 
the  visions  are  from  the  same  persons,  and 
these  are  the  prophets  themselves  writing 
and  speaking  at  the  times  they  profess  to 
write  and  speak,  and  in  relation  to  actual 
existing  events  that  form  the  subjects  of  their 
warning.  The  seers,  the  times,  the  nation, 
the  national  life,  it  is  all  one  true  picture, — 
in  its  parts,  most  truthful  and  natural,  in  its 
whole,  suggestive  of  an  extraordinary  and 
difficult  problem.  Let  any  man  attempt  to 
explain  its  natural  without  bringing  in  its 
supernatural,  or  some  other  supernatural — 
if  he  can. 

Either  of  these  suppositions,  except  the 
first,  tries  our  credulity  to  its  utmost  strain. 
To  suppose  that  this  amount  of  statistical 
statement,   from  Seth  to  Malachi,   all  came 


262  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

from  tradition  alone,  and  was  carried  down 
by  tradition,  or  was  ever  assumed  to  have 
been  so  carried,  or  that  all  these  numbers, 
round  and  mixed,  these  dates,  these  minute 
coincidences  of  events,  this  immense  body 
of  proper  names,  surpassing,  we  think,  all 
that  are  to  be  found  in  classical  dictionaries, 
these  countless  genealogies,  were  all  carried 
in  the  popular  or  the  individual  memory  until 
the  later  times  of  the  Jewish  history, — this 
is  beyond  all  belief.  Equally  incredible, 
more  incredible,  we  think,  that  thej^  should 
have  been  put  in  by  late  compilers  as  the 
arbitrary  or  conjectural  filling  up  of  outline 
historical  events  traditionally  received. 

The  wholesale  forgery  is  the  easier  of  be- 
lief, the  forgery  in  which  the  great  facts  as 
well  as  the  minutest  statistics  are  all  sup- 
posed to  be  mere  creations  of  the  imagina- 
tion. There  is,  too,  less  wrong  to  conscience. 
A  man  must  feel  less  guilty  in  producing  a 
whole  and  continuous  work  of  fiction,  than  in 
thus  tampering  with,   and  perverting,  what 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  263 

is  supposed  to  be  true  ;  if  it  can  be  supposed 
to  be  true  by  one  who  could  thus  deliberately 
deal  with  it.  There  must  be  felt  to  be  in  this 
circumstantial  falsehood,  thus  thrust  into  a 
traditionary  outline,  a  crime  and  a  meanness 
that  does  not  attach  to  the  bolder  work. 
Hence,  viewing  it  as  myths,  or  detached  na- 
tional stories  thus  falsely  filled  up,  we  cannot 
have  even  as  much  respect  for  the  Jewish 
history  as  for  the  early  Greek  so  truthfully 
left  in  its  natural  cloudiness,  its  wild  legend- 
ary state,  without  any  attempt  to  give  it  a 
minuteness  of  detail  it  could  not  naturally 
and  truly  possess.  The  bolder  forgery,  we 
say  again,  has  the  less  difficulty.  The  view 
of  Paine,  and  of  others  like  him,  though  it 
be  called  crude  and  unlearned,  though  it  be 
stigmatized  as  "vulgar  infidelity,'*7  is  really 
easier  than  some  theories  that  have  been  en- 
tertained by  the  Straussian  and  Westminster 
schools.  It  is  easier  to  believe  in  the  making 
an  entire  new  temple,  incredible  as  that  may 
seem  when  we  think  what  a  temple  it  is,  than 


26i  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

in  the  filling  up  an  old  tumbling  ruin  with 
such  elaborately- wrought  cornices  and  carved 
work,  to  say  nothing  of  Cherubim  and  Sera- 
phim, and  holy  symbolism,  so  utterly  out  of 
place  unless  regarded  as  representative  of 
ideas  that  must  have  constituted  the  ground 
and  reason  of  the  whole  structure. 

And  now,  if  such  wholesale  forgery,  as  we 
first  showed,  is  really  beyond  all  belief,  then 
there  remains  but  one  conclusion.  The  first 
of  our  three  suppositions  is  the  only  solution 
of  the  difficulty.  The  whole  Jewish  history  is 
true, — as  true  in  its  details,  its  dates,  its 
numbers — making  all  allowance  for  human 
injuries  in  transcription — as  in  its  general 
outlines.  The  evidence  for  the  one  part 
cannot  be  taken  out,  without  rending  away 
all  foundation  for  belief  in  the  other.  But 
take  it  all  away,  and  there  is  no  possible 
means  of  solving  the  greatest  problem  that 
history  presents, — namely,  the  influence  of 
this  imagined  nation,  this  ideal  religion,  upon 
the  whole  course  of  human  affairs  and  human 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  265 

thinking.  Receive  it  as  a  whole,  and  it  has 
a  strange  supernatural  light,  a  world-light, 
that  we  receive  along  with  it.  It  explains 
itself  and  vastly  more  in  history  besides. 
Take  it  in  any  other  way,  it  not  only  leaves 
us  in  darkness,  but  becomes  itself  the  most 
inexplicable  problem  ever  presented  to  the 
human  mind. 

The  only  writer  in  all  antiquity  who  makes 
any  approach  to  this  Bible  finish,  though  still 
at  a  vast  distance  from  it,  is  Homer  ;  and  this 
is  the  very  reason  why  we  are  so  impressed 
with  the  truthfulness  of  his  descriptions  of 
life.  In  his  catalogue  of  the  Grecian  ships 
and  armies,  (although  in  the  main  employ- 
ing round  numbers,)  in  his  accurate  geogra- 
phy, in  his  graphic  local  touches,  in  his 
family  stories,  he  presents  a  picture,  whose 
falsehood  it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  We  do 
not  hesitate  to  say  it — we  believe  in  Homer, 
— and  no  common  effort  of  sceptical  literary 
dissertation  would  make  us  yield  the  faith. 
We  have  more  trust  in  many  of  the  scenes 
12 


266  THE     DIVINE    II  UMAX 

of  the  Odyssey  than  in  the  relations  of  some 
modern  travellers.  His  wild  and  fanciful 
supernatural  sits  loose  from  his  descriptive 
narrative.  It  is  not  so  religiously  and  mor- 
ally interwoven  as  in  the  Bible  histories.  It 
is,  therefore,  quite  easy  to  separate  it,  and 
when  we  do  so,  the  thoughtful  reader  who 
can  enter  into  the  Homeric  spirit,  cannot 
help  feeling  that  in  other  respects,  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  are  among  the  most  truth- 
ful of  books.  If  it  were  not  so,  no  amount 
of  the  mere  marvellous  would  ever  have 
given  them  such  a  lasting  place  in  the  heart 
of  the  world. 

But  why  not,  then,  take  his  supernatural 
too,  on  the  grounds  of  the  argument  we  are 
now  using  in  respect  to  the  Bible  ?  The 
answer  is  easy,  and  we  think  conclusive. 
There  is  first,  that  immense  and  essential 
difference  between  the  two  supernaturals  on 
which  we  have  previously  insisted.  Every 
candid,  thoughtful  mind,  certainly  every 
truly  religious  mind,  must  see  and  acknowl- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  267 

edge  it.  The  Jehovah  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
the  Zeus  of  Homer !  the  angel  visits  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  the  Homeric  deities  sink- 
ing below  the  human  in  the  part  they  take 
in  the  strifes  of  men !  the  divine  guardian- 
ship of  a  chosen  nation,  as  preparatory  to  a 
chosen  church  to  be  gathered  from  all  na- 
tions, and  the  petty  providence  of  the  god  of 
Ida  which,  though  extending  much  beyond 
the  blind  selfish  passions  of  the  other  powers, 
is  yet  so  limited  by  the  Trojan  and  Grecian 
camp !  let  go  the  mere  scenery  and  take 
alone  the  moral  conceptions  ;  bring  them 
fairly  before  the  mind  and  we  need  say  no 
more.  But  why  is  the  supernatural  of  the 
Bible  so  different  from  that  of  other  ancient 
nations,  so  greatly  different,  that  in  the  ab- 
sence of  other  reasons,  and  no  others  can  be 
found,  it  can  only  be  explained  on  the 
ground  of  the  supernatural  itself?  The 
whole  case  might  here  be  rested,  but  the 
question  may  demand,  and  we  are  willing  to 
give,  a  wider  answer.    We  say  then,  to  make 


268  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  cases  wholly  parallel,  had  there  been 
connected  with  the  Homeric  stories  through- 
out, had  there  preceded  and  followed  them 
in  Grecian  history,  a  supernatural  like  that 
of  the  Bible,  possessing  every  where  the 
same  high  moral  reason  and  the  same  relig- 
ious dignity,  we  should  have  been  compelled 
to  receive  it  on  the  same  ground.  But  to 
fill  out  the  parallelism  to  its  widest  extent, 
we  must  make  a  supposition  long  in  time 
and  corresponding  to  the  whole  collateral 
field.  We  say  again  then— Had  there  been, 
not  only  in  Homer,  who  gleams  upon  us  like 
a  light  in  the  desert,  but  in  a  series  of  Hel- 
lenic writers  before  and  after  him,  the  same 
ever  consistent  mingling  of  their  earthly  his- 
tory with  a  high  superhuman  providence, 
and  an  eventful  human  destiny  ever  held 
forth  as  the  religious  ground  of  the  national 
life, — had  there  been  a  Father  of  the  Faith- 
ful, like  Abraham,  among  the  yrjyavsig  or  old 
ancestral  stock  of  the  Athenians,  had  the 
days  of  the  Sons  of  Hellen  presented  some- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  269 

thing  like  the  Patriarchal  life  with  its  pure 
trust  in  the  One  most  high  God,  had  some 
grand  pyramidal  figure  like  Moses  towered 
up  amid  those  chaotic  myths  of  the  Dorians 
and  Ionians,  had  there  been  a  Noah  among 
the  old  Pelasgi,  or  some  traditions  of  an 
Enoch  who  "walked  with  God"  and  was 
taken  away  from  a  sin-deluged  world, — had 
there  been  in  the  early  Grecian  "  mythical" 
something  like  the  visits  of  angels  to  rest- 
seeking,  world-weary  pilgrims,  and  divine  ap- 
pearances for  righteous  retribution  instead 
of  the  fanciful,  unmeaning  apotheoses  of  a 
Bacchus  or  a  Hercules, — had  "the  sons  of 
Javan  and  Elisha  and  Kittim  and  Dodanim  " 
brought  with  them  from  the  East,  and  ever 
preserved  among  their  descendants,  such  a 
holy  genealogical  record  as  has  been  carried 
clown  by  their  early  consanguinei  the  Sons 
of  Eber, — had  this  ancient  document  thus 
preserved  by  them  furnished  the  only  key 
to  a  universal  ethnology,  or  assumed  to  do 
so, — above  all,  had  there  come  out  of  these 


270  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Javanic  or  Ionic  roots  (for  they  are  the  same 
original  word)  such  a  nation  as  the  Israelites 
with  their  wonderful  monotheism  and  their 
most  religious  law,  carrying  down  with  them 
in  their  earliest  records,  and  as  repeated  con- 
tinually in  their  later  writings,  such  catholic 
promises  that  "  in  them  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  should  be  blessed,'7 — had  there  been 
ever  prominent  in  Grecian  thought,  instead  of 
fate  and  destiny,  the  ideas  of  covenant  and 
election, — had  there  been  all  along  in  place 
of  Dodonean  triflings  and  petty  Delphic 
cheats,  a  grand  series  of  Messianic  oracles, 
commencing  with  one  older  than  Prome- 
theus, and  holding  forth  the  "  Desire  of  all 
nations,"  not  merely  as  an  artistic  or  scientific 
civilizer,  but  as  the  long-expected  spiritual 
deliverer  of  our  sin-burdened  humanity, — 
had  these  Messianic  oracles  kept  growing 
clearer  and  clearer,  pointing  more  and  more 
to  the  unearthly  and  the  heavenly,  until 
there  had  at  last  arisen  in  this  favored  Hel- 
las, this  land  of  "the  covenant,"  some  one 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  271 

so  human  }Tet  so  superhuman  as  to  be  justly 
claimed  as  their  fulfiller,  and  in  whom  might 
have  been  discovered  a  resemblance,  not  to 
Pythagoras,  or  Plato,  or  to  Socrates  even, 
but  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth, — could  we  thus 
fill  up  the  parallel  (and  who  can  take  excep- 
tion to  the  mode  of  doing  it)  then  would  we 
be  prepared  to  answer  the  question  fully,  we 
think,  satisfactorily,  conclusively.  Had  the 
supernatural  of  Homer  and  the  Greek  lo- 
gographers  been  of  this  kind,  had  it  been 
grounded  on  such  a  "covenant,"'  supported 
by  such  promises  so  anciently  uttered  and 
for  all  humanity, — had  it  contained  such 
world-oracles,  and  had  the  great  series  of 
events  connected  with  them  terminated  in 
the  advent  of  such  a  Messiah,  then  could  we 
have  believed  in  a  Grecian  supernatural,  and 
regarded  the  Sons  of  Javan,  or  the  Hellenic 
race,  as  "Chosen  of  God,"  the  "Elect  of 
God,"  the  First  Born  among  the  nations,  as 
the  race  called  out  from  the  common  heath- 
enism, supernaturally  ruled  of  heaven,  des- 


272  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN. 

thied  to  be  a  light  to  the  barbarians  and  to 
all  people  who  sat  in  the  darkness  of  idolatry 
and  sin. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

The  Natural  in  the  History  of  Christ  —  The  Birth  of  Christ 
—  The  Yisit  of  the  Magi  —  The  Legendary  Aspect  has  come 
from  the  Romish  Traditions  —  How  Different  the  Bible  would 
have  been  had  it  been  compiled  in  a  Later  Age  —  Saint  Stories, 
The  Talmud  —  The  Universal  Eastern  Belief  in  the  Coming 
of  a  Hero  Messiah,  or  El  Gibbor  —  The  Angels  and  the  Shep- 
herds —  No  Human  Invention  these  —  Sublimity  of  the  An- 
nouncement —  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  Highest ;  on  Earth  Peace, 
Good  Will  to  Men"  —  The  Temptation  —  Its  Truthfulness, 
Subjective  and  Objective  —  The  Crucifixion  —  "  Then  sitting 
down  they  watched  him  there."  —  Holiness  and  Suffering  un- 
surpassed —  How  strange  if  there  had  been  no  Outward  Witness- 
ing of  Nature  —  This  Human,  this  Natural,  the  Whole  of  it !  —  In- 
credible —  God  Beholding  yet  Indifferent !  —  Still  more  Incredi- 
ble —  Beholding  with  Interest,  yet  that  Interest  never  mani- 
fested, never  to  be  manifested !  —  This  surpasses  all  belief —  A 
Divine  Interest  immeasurable  in  its  Intensity  —  The  Incredible 
of  the  Sense  as  opposed  to  the  Credibility  of  the  Higher  Think- 
ing—or the  Incredibility  of  the  Reason. 

On  the  supernatural  in  the  history  of  Christ 
we  have  already  partially  dwelt.  Take  out 
all  the  directly  miraculous,  and  there  is 
nothing  on  earth  so  human.  Nowhere,  too, 
does  this  show  itself  more  strongly  than  in 
12* 


274  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  midst  of  the  most  astoundingly  marvel- 
lous that  accompanied  his  birth  and  cru- 
cifixion. Where  every  thing  would  have 
tempted  to  the  wonder-making  style,  it  is 
there  precisely  that  we  have  all  that  is  most 
sober  in  the  manner  of  the  narration,  most 
truthful  and  probable  in  the  connection  with 
it  of  the  antecedent  and  surrounding  events 
of  history.  The  story  of  the  Magi,  and 
especially,  as  some  would  regard  it,  the 
oriental  style  of  its  commencement,  might 
seem  an  exception  to  this.  "  Now  when 
Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in 
the  days  of  Herod  the  King,  lo,  there  came 
wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem."  It 
does  appear,  at  first  view,  to  have  a  little 
of  the  legendary  look  ;  but  when  Ave  exam- 
ine carefully  the  source  of  such  a  feeling,  it 
is  found  to  have  come  from  the  legends  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  made  out  of  it,  and 
which  we  associate,  in  style  if  not  in  fact, 
with  the  original  picture.  In  the  same  way 
has  there  been  given  to  the  passages  that 


IX    THE    SCRIPTURES.  275 

speak  of  the  Virgin  a  coloring  of  thought 
different  from  what  they  would  otherwise 
have  possessed.  There  is,  however,  an  im- 
portant view  of  Bible  truth  to  be  learned 
from  this.  TTe  see  from  these  Romish  leg- 
ends what  the  Xew  Testament  would  have 
been,  or  rather  what  a  different  aspect  would 
have  been  given  to  its  narrations,  had  its 
early  materials  been  left  floating  until  they 
had  been  gathered  into  a  written  form  by 
these  traditionists.  How  very  different  from 
the  plain  histories  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke 
and  John,  would  have  been  our  Gospels, 
had  they  been  first  compiled  in  the  Fifth  or 
Sixth  century !  There  might  not,  perhaps, 
have  been  more  of  the  miraculous,  but  it 
would  have  had  another  style  ;  it  would 
have  been  the  predominant  thing,  and  by  its 
swelling  features  have  betrayed  this  false 
position.  The  actual  presence  of  the  super- 
human, or  its  close  proximity,  made  the  spirit 
sober  ;  the  deep  conviction  of  the  evangelical 
writers,  so  different  from  the  inflating  leg- 


276  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

endary  faith,  kept  down  the  tendency  to  the 
mere  wonder-feeling  and  wonder-making. 
These  are  aspects  of  style  inseparable  from 
narrations  of  the  supernatural  made  long 
after  the  miraculous  epoch  has  passed  away. 
They  betray  the  fact  that  the  reality  to 
which  they  refer  is  removed  to  a  great  dis- 
tance. They  show  effort,  perhaps  uncon- 
scious effort,  to  make  up  for  this  distance, 
and  the  loss  of  the  near  impression,  by  dis- 
proportion and  exaggeration.  Thus  we  see, 
too,  what  the  truthful  histories  of  the  Old 
Testament  would  have  become  under  a  simi- 
lar process  in  the  hands  of  the  later  Rabbins. 
The  Talmud  and  the  Romish  saint-stories 
are  proof  enough  of  the  kind  of  shape  the 
whole  Bible  would  have  taken,  had  not  su- 
perhuman power  intervened  continually  for 
the  preservation  of  its  human  truthfulness. 

For  the  reasons  given,  this  story  of  the 
11  Wise  men  from  the  East"  has  at  first  some- 
thing of  the  legendary  aspect,  and  yet,  when 
we  come  to  view  it  in  all  its  connections, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  277 

there  is  no  event  that  fits  more  exactly,  not 
only  with  the  Jewish,  but  with  the  consist- 
ency, and  most  sober  aspect,  of  the  world's 
general  history.  We  are  assured  by  a  Roman 
author  well  acquainted  with  the  fact  about 
which  he  writes,  that  at  this  time  there  pre- 
vailed, throughout  the  East,  an  opinion  that 
some  great  one  was  about  to  arise  who  should 
possess  the  dominion  of  the  world,  and  that 
Judea  was  the  country  in  which  his  birth  was 
to  be  expected — "  percrebuerat  Oriente  toto 
veins  et  constans  opinio,  esse  in  fatis,  ut  eo 
tempore  Judea  profecti  rerum  potirentur." 
This  vetus  opinio,  or  ancient  belief,  was  but 
the  expansion  of  the  great  Messianic  idea 
of  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  or  of  the  still  older 
idea  that  had  come  from  the  earliest  times, 
even  from  the  days  of  that  primitive  patri- 
archal revelation  of  which  every  Eastern  na- 
tion had  preserved  some  remains.  In  the 
Book  of  Job  we  have  evidence  that  it  was 
not  confined  to  the  Jews.  The  visions  of 
Balaam  show  that  it  was  common  to  the 


278  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

earliest  seers,  and  had  place  among  "  the 
Children  of  the  East."  Aside  from  direct 
history,  aside  from  the  Messianic  oracles 
whether  of  the  Jews  or  of  other  nations, 
aside  from  the  Messianic  tradition  as  more 
or  less  appearing  in  the  distortions  of  all  the 
Eastern  religions, — aside  from  all  this,  what 
more  natural  and  probable  than  the  idea  itself, 
even  if  we  suppose  it  to  have  arisen  sponta- 
neously, without  oracle  or  special  revelation, 
in  the  human  mind !  What  more  consistent 
with  the  highest  truthfulness  of  human  con- 
ceptions, than  this  thought  of  a  Saviour,  a 
Redeemer,  a  hero,  a  mighty  one,  who  should 
come  in  the  latter  day  for  the  deliverance  of 
our  sin-wearied  humanit}^!  This  feeling 
would  reach  its  crisis  when  the  whole  politi- 
cal power  of  the  world  was  seen  gathering 
to  one  head.  ]STo  wonder  that  the  more  sec- 
ular and  ambitious  minds  interpreted  the  old 
wide-spread  oracle  of  the  Roman  emperor. 
The  more  thoughtful  souls  looked  in  a  differ- 
ent direction.    Many  things  would  turn  them 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  279 

to  the  land  of  Judea.  The  Israelitish  nation 
had  become,  from  various  reasons,  an  object  of 
special  attention.  They  had  begun  to  make 
a  conspicuous  chapter  in  Roman  history. 
Their  captivity  in  Babylon  and  Persia  had 
left  remembrances  such  as  had  accompanied 
no  other  nations  conquered  by  those  strong 
empires.  Wherever  they  were  known,  and 
they  were  now  beginning  to  be  known  quite 
widely,  they  were  recognized  as  a  "  peculiar,'7 
a  very  "  peculiar  people."  There  was  at  this 
time  a  Jewish  school  in  Babylon,  which  was 
among  the  chief  controllers  of  thought  in  the 
East.  Isaiah  shows  a  knowledge  of  the  Per- 
sian (9)  doctrine  of  Good  and  Evil,  and 
nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  Zoroaster,  or  the  Magi,  or  "  Wise 
Men,7'*  as  they  are  called  in  the  gospel,  should 
have  had  some  knowledge  of  his  glowing 
prophecies  respecting  the  wondrous  child  to 
be  born  of  a  virgin,  and  who  was  to  be  called 
The  "El  Gibbor,"  the  " Mighty  One,"  the 
"  Prince  of  Peace."     Under  such  a  thought, 


280  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

too,  the  pilgrimage  undertaken  was  an  event 
in  perfect  keeping  with  the  thinking  and 
feeling  of  those  countries  and  those  times. 

Turn  we  now  to  a  different  scene,  in  har- 
mony with,  and  yet  presenting  a  most  impres- 
sive contrast  to,  the  one  we  have  already  been 
contemplating.     This  world-wide  story  of  a 
Messiah  to  be  born  was  not  only  the  study 
of  the  Eastern  sage,  but  formed  the  topic  of 
nightly  conversation  among  the  shepherds  in 
"the  hill  country  of  Judea."     "And  there 
were  in  the  same  country  shepherds  abiding 
in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over  their  flocks 
by  night.     And    lo,  the   angel  of  the  Lord 
came  upon  them,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
shone  round  about  them;  and  they  were  sore 
afraid.     And  the  angel  said  unto  them.  Fear 
not ;  for  behold,  I  bring  you  glad  tidings  of 
great  joy  which  shall  be  to  all  people.     For 
unto  you  is  born  this  day  in  the  city  of  David, 
a  Saviour  which  is  Christ  the  Lord.     And 
this  shall  be  to  you  the  sign  ;  ye  shall  find 
the  babe  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes,  lying 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  281 

in  a  manger.  And  suddenly  there  was  with 
the  angel  a  multitude  of  the  Heavenly  host 
praising  God  and  saying — Glory  to  God  in  the 
highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  (10)  to- 
wards men."  No  human  faculty  of  invention 
ever  invented  this  ;  no  human  imagination 
ever  filled  it  up,  or  magnified  it  from  some 
rudimentary  fact  or  scene.  We  feel  that  the 
picture  is  perfect ;  to  touch  is  to  deface  it. 
It  is  unique  in  itself ;  it  never  had  additions 
or  alterations  ;  it  never  grew.  The  scene  is 
one  total  impression.  There  is  no  one  part 
we  can  select  as  the  germ  of  the  rest.  There 
were  shepherds  watching  their  flocks  by 
night,  and  discoursing  with  each  other  about 
certain  strange  rumors  that  then  filled  the 
whole  "hill  country  of  Judea."  They  had 
heard  the  story  of  Zachariah.  They  knew  the 
universal  expectation  in  regard  to  the  Son 
of  David,  and  the  universal  feeling  that  his 
advent  was  near  at  hand.  Their  views  of 
Him  may  have  been  very  erroneous,  but 
their  hearts  were  full  of  the  expected  glory. 


282  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Is  it  strange  that  they  saw  a  light  in  the 
heavens  ?  Call  it  fancy  if  you  will,  an  ex- 
cited imagination  ;  we  are  onl}r  arguing  here 
for  the  subjective  truthfulness  of  the  narra- 
tion. Is  it  strange  that  they  heard  voices  in 
the  air  around  them  and  above  them  ?  Say 
if  you  will  that  their  awed  feelings,  and  their 
wondrously  elated  hopes,  shaped  these  sounds 
into  the  glorious  words  that  are  recorded. 
Here  is  the  great,  the  real  wonder.  It  is  the 
spiritual  marvel  that  throws  in  the  back- 
ground the  physical  strangeness.  We  believe 
in  the  miracle  on  the  ground  of  the  doctrine 
conveyed  ;  we  find  it  easy  to  give  credence 
to  an  outward  supernatural  as  attested  by 
the  sublimit}'  of  such  a  message.  It  is  nothing 
so  strange  that  shepherds  should  see  lights 
in  the  heaven,  that  the}7  should  hear  voices 
in  the  air  :  but  such  voices,  such  words,  ar- 
ranged in  such  a  sentence,  that  has  not  yet 
ceased,  and  never  will  cease,  to  vibrate 
through  the  heart  of  humanity — "Behold,  I 
bring  you  glad   tidings  of  great  joy  which 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  283 

shall  be  to  all  people, — Glory  to  God  in  the 
highest ;  on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward 
men."  We  leave  out  of  the  account  the  idea 
of  sheer  forgery  as  something  too  incredible 
for  any  sane  mind  to  entertain.  A  light  was 
seen  ;  sounds  were  heard,  whether  by  the  ear 
of  the  sense,  or  the  ear  of  the  imagination,  or 
the  ear  of  the  most  truthful  inner  spirit.  The 
scene  thus  far  was  a  reality,  the  light  was  a 
reality,  the  voices  a  reality !  If  wholly  sub- 
jective, it  is  only  the  more  wonderful  realit}r. 
What  was  there  in  the  common  thought  of 
these  shepherds,  in  their  culture,  their  associ- 
ations of  ideas,  that  should  have  so  shaped  the 
vision,  and  brought  out  upon  the  airy  undu- 
lations that  sublimest  collocation  of  words  the 
world  had  ever  heard,  that  message  of  divine 
peace  so  far  beyond  what  philosophy  had  ever 
conceived,  or  poetry  had  ever  dreamed.  It 
drives  us  to  the  outward  supernatural  as  the 
easier  explanation  of  the  mystery :  Why  should 
there  not  have  been  a  light  from  heaven,  and 
a  voice  from  heaven,  when  such  a  truth  was 


284  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

uttered  ?  If  convinced  that  it  is  subjectively 
true,  then,  for  the  mind  that  truly  conceives 
the  scene  and  the  idea,  it  is  difficult  to  with- 
hold assent  from  the  full  reality,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  that  Protean  word.  We  have  ever 
been  led  to  regard  this  narration  in  Luke  as 
one  of  the  key  passages  of  the  Scriptures,  or 
one  of  those  infallible  proof  texts  where  the 
divine  beauty  and  glory  so  shine  out  that  we 
cannot  easily  conceive  of  falsehood.  Heaven 
is  here  come  down  to  earth  ;  it  lies  all  around 
us  ; — how  pure  the  air,  how  clear  the  light, 
how  holy  the  revelation  !  Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest ;  on  earth  peace,  good  will  to  men. 
If  this  is  unreal,  what  then  on  this  poor 
earth  of  ours  can  be  regarded  as  real  ?  There 
is  a  power  in  truthful  representation,  when 
we  can  conceive  it  aright,  that  is  irresistible. 
We  know  it  as  we  know  the  sun  that  shines, 
the  heat  that  warms,  the  emotion  that  we 
feel,  the  very  thought  we  are  thinking.  And 
thus  there  is  a  conviction  that  enables  us  to 
say  with  boldness,  if  this  passage  in  Luke  is 


IK    THE    SCRIPTURES.  285 

an  unreality,  then  is  our  whole  life  an  un- 
reality j  philosophy,  and  science,  and  his- 
tory, and  theology,  and  all  opinions,  and  all 
religions,  are  but  the  veriest  dreams  of  a 
visionary,  unsubstantial  existence. 

In  the  same  manner,  too,  may  we  separate 
the  subjective  from  the  objective  truthfulness 
in  the  history  of  "  the  temptation  ;"  and  this 
not  for  the  purpose  of  denying  or  under- 
valuing, but  of  confirming  the  outward  nar- 
rative. The  Child  of  such  a  birth,  so  strange 
and  said  to  be  so  strangely  heralded, — we 
cannot  wonder  that  from  his  youth  he  should 
have  been  filled  with  the  idea  of  a  divine 
mission,  and  that  even  at  the  tender  age  of 
twelve  years  he  should  have  felt  that  "he 
must  be  about  his  Father's  business.''  Then, 
too,  does  it  cease  to  be  strange  that  he,  as 
well  as  those  he  came  to  deliver,  must  have 
a  struggle  with  the  Great  Power  of  evil. 
This  admitted,  the  fasting,  the  wilderness 
life,  are  all  truthful  for  such  a  character,  all, 
too,   in  strict   accordance   with    the   ascetic 


286  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ideas  of  those  who  were  esteemed  most 
pious,  most  unearthly  in  that  age.  "And 
when  he  was  an  hungered  the  devil  came 
unto  him."  Say,  if  you  please,  that  it  was 
a  vision  occasioned  by  his  abnormal  physical 
state.  It  may  have  been  none  the  less  real, 
none  the  less  designed  by  God  as  the  very 
means  for  its  production.  But  the  inward 
conflict — the  soul  strife — how  truthful  the 
representation  of  that  war  in  the  spirit,  how 
grand  the  lesson  that  he  who  saves  us  from 
sin  and  temptation  had  himself  to  go  through 
the  process  by  which  he  was  to  know,  not  a 
priori,  from  known  or  conceived  causes,  or  a 
posteriori,  from  seen  effects,  but  in  se,  in 
prcesenti,  from  actual  personal  experience, 
what  temptation  is,  and  how  the  soul  feels 
when  assailed  by  it.  Such  a  High  Priest 
became  us  who  was  tempted  in  all  respects, 
xara  navra  v.a§  oiiotoTi^a,  as  we  are 
tempted,  yet  without  sin.  This  is  the  essen- 
tial reality  ;  and  when  this  is  conceived  as  it 
ought  to  be,  how  easy  to  believe  the  less 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  287 

reality  of  a  true  personal  objective  presence 
as  the  accompaniment  and  representative  of 
so  mighty  and  real  a  power !  The  writer 
thinks  he  cannot  be  misinterpreted  in  the 
views  here  given.  He  does  not  deny  the 
objective  ;  he  holds  to  the  objective  ;  but  he 
would  wish  to  present  strongly  the  greater 
wonder  of  the  natural  and  human  working, 
as  that  which  makes  not  barely  credible  only, 
but  easy  of  belief,  the  supernatural  and  su- 
perhuman accompaniment.  Let  one  believe 
in  the  perfect  truthfulness  of  the  Magi  visit, 
the  shepherds'  annunciation,  the  spiritual 
struggle  with  the  tempting  power,  and  then, 
the  moving  meteor,  the  celestial  glory,  the 
demon  appearance,  the  angelic  voices,  be- 
come, at  once,  expected  and  harmonious  ac- 
companiments of  the  higher  reality.  If  one 
does  not  thus  believe  in  the  human,  if  he 
does  not  know  enough  of  the  human, — his 
own  human,  or  the  human  in  general, — to 
make  such  conceptions  possible  to  him,  and 
to   give  them  the  high  air  of  reality,  then 


288  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

would  all  supernatural  manifestations  be  in 
vain.  "  He  would  not  believe  truly,  though 
one  rose  from  the  dead. ;  He  would  not  be- 
lieve because  there  is  for  him  nothing  in  the 
credible  of  the  reason,  of  the  conscience,  or 
the  spiritual  discernment,  to  carry  him 
against  the  incredibility  of  the  sense. 

There  is  no  page  in  the  Bible  more  in- 
tensely human  than  that  which  records  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ,  and  yet  there  is  no  one 
that  so  directly  draws  the  mind  to  the 
thought  of  the  unearthly  and  the  supernat- 
ural. The  malice  of  the  Priests,  the  cruelty 
of  the  fickle  multitude,  the  wrath  of  the 
national  prejudices,  the  Roman  "caring  for 
none  of  these  things/' — Caiphas,  Pilate,  Pi- 
late's wife,  the  soldiers,  the  frightened  disci- 
ples, the  clamoring  mob, — how  human  are 
they  all !  The  sufferer,  too,  in  their  midst, — 
keep  out  of  view  all  higher  thoughts,  and 
where  was  a  more  perfect  manhood  ever  ex- 
hibited to  the  world !  How  different  from 
the  humanity  around  him,  and  yet  how  truly 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  289 

man  !  Take  up  the  book  and  read.  Does 
a  shade  of  scepticism  cross  the  Christian 
mind,  we  know  of  no  better  prescription  for 
such  a  disease  than  this  :  Take  up  the  book 
and  read  the  story  of  the  crucifixion.  There 
is  no  need  of  retouching  the  picture.  Noth- 
ing can  add  to  the  divine  limning  of  the 
scene  as  presented  in  the  Evangelists.  Thus 
far,  we  venture  to  say,  no  sane  mind  can 
have  any  more  doubt  of  its  reality  than  of 
any  event  of  yesterday  narrated  by  the  most 
authentic  of  human  testimony.  Thus  far 
there  is  nothing  in  Thucydides  or  Tacitus, 
nothing  in  Robertson  or  Prescott,  nothing 
in  any  book  of  Memoirs,  nothing  in  any  Bi- 
ography, ancient  or  modern,  to  be  compared 
with  it.  We  feel  throughout  the  power  of 
a  graphic  truthfulness  that  is  wholly  irresist- 
ible. But  there  is  one  point  in  which  it 
seems  to  be  all  condensed.  It  is  the  close 
of  the  drama  so  far  as  the  mere  human 
agency  is  concerned.  The  soldiers'  more 
active  work  is  done.  With  stolid  indiffer- 
13 


290  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ence  have  they  nailed  him  to  the  cross,  then 
raised  it  high  in  air.  "  They  parted  his  gar- 
ments among  them  ; "  and  then,  says  the 
author  of  this  inimitable  narrative,  "then 
sitting  down  they  watched  him  there.'7  It 
was  with  no  feeling  of  compassion.  All  that 
they  had  now  to  do  was  to  await  with  mili- 
tary patience  that  lingering  agony  they  so 
well  knew,  and  to  which  they  had  become  so 
indifferent.  The  beginning  of  the  work  is 
put  for  the  consummation.  "  They  crucified 
him/7  says  the  Evangelist  ;  "  then  sitting 
down  they  watched  him  there.77 

Here  is  the  end  of  the  human,  the  natural. 
So  far  all  is  credible,  probable,  irresistibly 
truthful.  But  can  the  mind  rest  here  ?  Will 
it  not  become  incredible  again  if  there  is 
nothing  more  ?  The  series  of  events  culmi- 
nates in  this  one  scene  presented  to  their  eyes, 
now  presented  to  our  imaginations.  What 
have  we  before  us  ?  A  holy  and  innocent 
being,  the  most  holy  the  world  had  ever 
known,  made  to  suffer  the  most  lingering 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  291 

and  agonizing  pain.  Now  turn  we  from  the 
credible  of  sense  and  nature  to  the  higher 
credible,  the  higher  truthfulness  demanded 
by  the  moral  reason  and  the  conscience. 
Here  is  the  spectacle  ; — and  now  we  ask, 
Which  is  the  greater  wonder, — that  this 
should  be  the  whole  of  it,  all  finished  here 
on  earth,  with  nothing  more  in  any  world 
beyond,  in  any  heaven  above  or  hell  below, 
in  any  time  then  present,  in  any  time  to 
come, — that  this  should  continue  to  be  the 
whole  of  it,  this  natural,  this  human  merely, 
or  that  there  should  be  some  manifestation 
from  a  higher  sphere  in  attestation  of  some 
higher  ideas  than  those  that  filled  the  minds 
of  revengeful  Jews,  or  the  watching  Roman 
soldiers  ?  The  bare  sight,  the  bare  concep- 
tion of  the  outward  scene,  has  of  itself  a 
strangeness,  an  a  'priori  incredibility  which 
even  the  familiarity  of  sense  cannot  wholly 
take  away.  A  holy  soul  thus  suffering  !  But 
add  another  thought.  Thus  suffering  all 
alone,  no  higher  soul  beholding !     How  the 


292  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

wonder  rises  !  Beholding,  yet  indifferent ! 
It  passes  all  belief.  Beholding  with  inter- 
est, with  interest  most  intense — for  no  move- 
ment of  the  Divine  soul  can  be  either  small 
or  measurable — and  yet  that  interest  never, 
never  manifested,  and  never  to  be  manifested 
in  any  outward  sign.  We  have  reached  the 
utmost  climax  of  the  marvellous.  But  grant- 
ing it  to  be  conceivable,  still  the  question 
returns  :  Is  this  the  less  wonder,  or  that  the 
earth  should  quake,  the  rocks  should  rend, 
and  darkness  cover  all  the  land,  when  the 
Omnipotent  Holiness  is  thus  defied,  and  the 
proof  is  challenged,  as  it  were,  that  the 
higher  world  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  indiffer- 
ent to  such  a  spectacle  ?  We  cannot  bear 
the  thought,  when  we  think  and  feel  aright. 
No  miraculous  in  nature  can  surpass  it  in  in- 
credibility. There  is  mind  somewhere,  some 
higher  mind,  some  universal  soul,  to  whom 
such  a  scene  is  matter  of  intensest  interest ; 
and  just  as  strongly  do  we  feel  that  this 
interest  must  display  itself.     The  publicity  of 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  293 

right,  the  manifestation  of  right,  is  just  as 
much  a  demand  of  the  reason  as  the  abso- 
lute existence  of  right,  It  must  become 
objective,  or  the  essential  idea  is  marred. 
At  some  time,  in  some  way,  will  it  so  come 
out,  that  not  only  will  the  reason  acknowl- 
edge it  to  be  a  truth,  but  the  eye  shall  see, 
the  ear  shall  hear,  the  inmost  sense  shall 
feel  it  as  the  deepest  fact,  the  highest  reality, 
of  the  universe.  It  may  not  be  now,  nor 
nigh,  yet  such  objective  manifestation  will 
surely  be.  Even  in  ordinary  cases  of  wrong 
we  cannot  keep  out  the  thought.  Things 
will  not  pass  awaj^,  the  universe  will  not  go 
on  its  eternal  course  with  any  wrong,  the 
least  wrong,  buried  in  eternal  indifference,  or 
forever  hidden  subjectively  in  the  mind  of 
God,  or  having  its  retribution  only  faintly 
signalled  in  some  obscure  and  hard  to  be  in- 
terpreted arrangements  of  unvaried  physical 
law.  No  soul  is  ever  really  satisfied  with 
the  common  babble  about  the  retribution  of 
nature.     The  reason,  too,  has  its  law,  and 


294  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

this  demands  the  supernatural  manifestation. 
Before  the  world  ends,  before  even  nature 
ends,  there  must  come  some  higher  and 
more  distinct  sign,  some  unmistakable  show- 
ing that  the  least  moral  evil  is  of  more  mo- 
ment than  any  order,  or  any  disorder,  of  the 
material  universe. 

Thus  are  we  compelled  to  think  even  in 
respect  to  common  wrongs.  Here  ordinary 
experience  seems  to  be  against  what  would 
otherwise  be  the  decision  of  the  reason  ;  and 
so,  "if  the  vision  tariy  we  wait  for  it," — 
the  higher,  though  for  the  present  overruled, 
faculty  of  the  soul  gathering  from  the  very 
delay  accumulated  argument  for  the  great 
final  manifestation.  But  in  such  a  case  as 
this  of  the  crucifixion,  we  feel  that  the  scale 
of  credibility  turns  the  other  way.  The 
present  becomes  more  easy  of  belief  than 
the  suspended  manifestation.  The  super- 
natural surprises  our  sense  ;  it  is  oppos- 
ed to  the  associations  of  the  lower  though 
the  more  common    experience,  and    this,  its 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  295 

lower  incredibility,  is  the  ground  of  Hume's 
vulgar  argument  against  miracles.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  entire  absence  of  any  such 
manifestation  in  such  a  case  as  this,  gives  a 
shock  to  the  higher  thinking.  It  is  a  higher 
incredibility  that  Hume  and  Bentham  were 
utterly  incapable  of  estimating.  Such  ab- 
sence would  be  a  wonder  we  might  receive 
with  a  submissive  faith,  humbly  trusting  to 
the  revelation  of  some  distant  day  ;  still  in 
itself,  and  to  a  right  mind,  would  it  be  a 
higher  marvel,  requiring  a  higher  exercise 
of  this  faith  than  is  demanded  for  crediting 
any  of  the  wonders  in  nature  recorded  by 
the  Evangelists. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 

The  Mysterious  Chasm  in  Church  History  —  The  Burial  of 
Christ — The  Appearance  to  Mary  —  At  the  Sea  of  Galilee  — 
Subjective  Truthfulness  of  the  Stories  of  the  Resurrection  — 
Commencement  of  the  Historical  Chasm  —  "  The  Acts  of  the 
Apostles"  —  Its  Scanty  Records  — How  Little  we  know  of  the 
Apostolic  Age  !  —  The  New  Life  in  the  World  —  Had  come 
from  the  Grave  of  Christ  —  The  Historical  Silence  like  the 
Chasms  discovered  in  Nature's  Progress  —  The  Silent  Super- 
natural coming  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Creations  — 
Separates  the  Inspired  from  the  other  Writings  of  the  Church  — 
The  Light  seen  again  towards  the  days  of  the  Apostolical  Fathers 

—  A  new  Power  had  worked  mightily  between  —  Whence  came 
it  ?  —  The  Apostles  carried  with  them  something  more  than 
Truth  —  Beside  the  Doctrine,  they  had  with  them  the  Risen  Life 
itself  of  the  Crucified  —  The  Phrase  hv  Xpiorti  —  Xpiorbg  iv 
v/uv  —  Early  Christians  styled  Christophori,  Christ-bearers  — 
Justyn  Martyr  —  The  Language  means  more  than  Discipleship 

—  Unknown  to  the  World  before  —  A  new  Thought  demanded 
new  Words  —  Favorite  Language  of  Paul  —  "  The  New  Man  " 

—  "The  Man  in  Christ"  —  Christ  in  the  Church — We  study 
Christ  in  Paul  —  Comes  nearer  to  us  than  in  the  Evangelists. 

"  He  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried."  Here 
ends  the  natural,  or  as  we  have  styled  it, 
the  ordinarily  credible,  in  the  history  of 
Christ.  "  When  Jesus,  therefore,  had  re- 
ceived the  vinegar  he  said,  It  is  finished  ; 
and    he   bowed   his  head  and   gave   up  the 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  297 

ghost."  The  soldier  had  pierced  his  side  to 
ascertain  the  fact  that  he  was  unmistakably 
dead.  "  He  who  saw  it  had  borne  witness" 
in  his  own  loving  and  mourning  memory  to 
the  never  to  be  forgotten  event.  The  rich 
friend  of  Arimathea  had  begged  the  body  of 
Pilate  and  taken  it  down  from  the  cross. 
The  honorable  friend  Nicodemus,  despond- 
ing but  no  longer  afraid,  had  brought  "  his 
aromatic  mixture  of  myrrh  and  aloes  about 
an  hundred  pounds  weight."  "  Then  took 
they  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  wound  it  in 
linen  cloths,  with  the  spices,  as  the  manner  of 
the  Jews  is  to  bury.  Now  in  the  place  where 
he  was  crucified  there  was  a  garden,  and  in 
the  garden  a  new  sepulchre  wherein  was 
never  man  laid.  There  laid  they  Jesus, 
therefore,  because  of  the  Jews'  preparation- 
day  ;  for  the  sepulchre  was  nigh  at  hand." 
Who  can  doubt  this  ?  What  motive  to 
doubt  it?  What  reason  to  doubt  it  that 
would  not  involve  in  scepticism  every  nar- 
ration of  a  death  and  burial  ever  given  to 
13* 


298  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  world?  As  well  doubt  that  Socrates 
drank  the  poisoned  cup,  or  that  Washington 
was  entombed  at  Mount  Yernon. 

Here  ends  the  scene,  we  say,  in  its  natu- 
ral or  earthly  aspect.  Most  grave  is  it,  most 
solemnly  impressive,  yet  within  the  limits  of 
the  ordinary  or  sense  credibility.  Certain 
events  are  recorded  as  transpiring  after- 
wards, but  they  belong  to  the  unearthly  or 
supernatural  chapter.  It  is  a  part  of  our 
present  argument  to  pass  them  by,  though 
without  at  all  losing  sight  of  them.  They 
are,  indeed,  supernatural,  as  viewed  in  their 
absolute  verity,  but  it  is  sufficient,  at  pres- 
ent, to  advert  to  the  subjective  truthful- 
ness of  the  narrative.  There  is  the  story  of 
a  reappearance  upon  earth,  of  the  body 
being  strangely  missing  from  the  sepulchre, 
of  the  wonder  of  the  disciples  when  this 
startling  rumor  is  brought  to  their  despond- 
ing minds.  One  saw  the  empty  grave,  and 
believed  that  its  tenant  had  risen  from  the 
dead.     The  others,  as  is  evidently  implied, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  299 

went  away  again  to  their  own  homes,  still 
desponding,  still  unbelieving,  "for  they 
knew  not  the  Scriptures," — they  knew  not 
the  glory  of  that  new  kingdom,  of  that  new 
life  for  the  world,  which,  as  we  now  know, 
bej^ond  all  doubting,  did  truly  arise  out  of 
that  garden  sepulchre.  The  narrative  tells 
of  one  who  had  a  stronger  faith,  even  that 
faith  whose  energy  and  vitality  is  love.  It 
was  "the  woman,  the  sinner,"  who  "  loved 
much  because  she  had  been  forgiven  much." 
It  might  have  been  this  faith  stripped  even 
of  hope,  and  reduced  to  its  rudimental  ele- 
ment of  holy  affection, — it  might  have  been 
this  faith,  outwardly  desponding,  yet  in- 
wardly still  alive,  that  caused  her  to  see  and 
hear  what  others  saw  and  heard  not.  And 
so  might  the  sceptical  objector  maintain  that 
it  was  her  own  loving  fancy  that  through 
the  dim  grey  mists  of  the  morning  gave 
shape  to  the  ever-remembered  One  who  had 
once  so  tenderly  pronounced  her  sins  for- 
given.    It  was  her  own  loving   fancy  that 


300  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

gave  this  shadowy  form  the  well-known 
voice,  when  it  "said  unto  her,  Mary,  and 
she  turned  herself  and  said  unto  him,  Rab- 
boni,  which  is  to  say,  Master."  There  is  a 
ghostly,  imaginative  air  about  it,  the  critic 
may  say,  and  with  some  plausibility  ;  but 
who  can  deny  the  heavenly  strain  of  the 
message  that  follows  this  brief  and  touching 
allocution  ?  She  had  started  to  grasp  the 
body,  or  the  figure,  call  it  what  we  will, 
when  Jesus  saith  unto  her,  "  Touch  me  not, 
Mary,  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my 
Father  ;  but  go  to  my  brethren,  and  say 
unto  them,  I  ascend  unto  my  Father  and 
your  Father,  and  to  my  God  and  your 
God."  Fraud  here  is  out  of  the  question  ; 
no  soul  that  has  not  utterly  lost  all  feeling 
of  the  pure  and  truthful  can  entertain  such 
a  thought  for  a  moment.  Fancy  may  have 
raised  the  form,  but  could  any  supposed 
fancy  have  created  such  a  voice  and  such  a 
declaration  ?  Granting,  however,  that  such 
a  solution  might  seem  probable  if  we  had  to 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  301 

judge  of  the  story  alone,  without  regard  to 
its  antecedents  or  its  consequents,  yet,  in 
view  of  these,  now  so  clear  and  so  well 
established,  how  greatly  increased  the 
gravity,  how  essentially  changed  the  whole 
aspect,  of  the  testimony  !  We  do  now  know 
that  there  has  been,  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  coming  forth  from  that  grave  a  power 
most  unearthly,  most  superhuman  ;  a  power 
that  none  but  the  most  ignorantly  obstinate 
can  doubt ;  a  power  that  has  changed,  and 
is  still  changing,  the  face  of  the  world.  It  is 
this  fact,  this  knowledge,  which  may  well  be 
regarded  as  rendering,  for  us  at  least,  such 
an  objective  declaration  at  the  time  one  of 
the  most  credible  events  that  ever  happened 
in  human  history.  The  incredibility  of  the 
sense  and  the  imagination  is  lost,  yea,  over- 
come an  hundred  fold,  in  the  higher  credi- 
bility of  the  reason,  in  view  of  the  ac- 
companying truth,  and  the  superhuman 
historical  effect. 

And    so    of  the   other    appearances — the 


302  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

coming  into  the  midst  of  the  watchful  com- 
pany "  when  the  doors  were  shut  for  fear 
of  the  Jews,"  the  familiar  voice  so  readily 
distinguished  from  its  well-known  salutation, 
"  Peace  be  unto  you,"  the  "  burning  hearts'' 
that  felt  a  friend  was  nigh,  though  "  the  eye 
was  holden"  from  recognizing  the  changed 
form  that  so  mysteriously  travelled  with 
them  from  Emmaus  to  Jerusalem  ;  the  sud- 
den clearing  up  of  all  that  seemed  dim  and 
phantom-like  as  they  witnessed  the  familiar 
yet  solemn  act  of  breaking  bread.  There  is 
the  same  feeling  as  we  read  the  account  of 
that  early  morning  visit  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
when  again  the  disciples  knew  him  not  until 
the  beloved  one  recognized  the  Master's 
speech  in  the  tender  question,  "Children, 
have  ye  any  meat?"  "Then  were  the  dis- 
ciples glad  when  they  saw  the  Lord."  Is  this 
the  language,  this  the  style  of  narration,  of 
wonder-makers  or  legendary  mythopoeists  ? 
Call  it  imagination  if  you  will— it  may  be  con- 
fessed that  there  were  some  grounds  for  its 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  303 

excitement — but  how  pure  the  imagination, 
how  heavenly  !  If  it  were  subjective  merely, 
how  holy  that  subjectiveness  !  how  calmly 
restrained  by  some  most  unusual,  if  not  un- 
earthly influence  !  What  can  be  more  truth- 
ful than  the  manner  of  narration,  and  what 
more  incredible  than  that  it  should  have 
been  so  told  by  men  who  knew  that  it  was 
all  a  lying  picture,  whose  most  minute  and 
tender  touches  would,  on  such  a  supposition, 
be  the  grossest  of  all  mendacities  ?  To  think 
of  such  a  story,  and  so  told,  by  men  who  had 
stolen  their  Master's  lifeless  body,  and  knew 
that  it  was  lying  concealed  somewhere,  a  de- 
composing corpse  !  To  think  of  such  truth- 
ful simplicity,  such  enthusiasm,  such  earnest- 
ness, such  courage,  such  elevated  thought, 
such  holy  emotion,  such  a  heavenly  life  of 
love,  such  martyr  deaths  coming  from  such 
a  source  ! — of  so  much  unearthly  vitality, 
in  short,  proceeding  from  a  mouldering 
death,  so  much  spiritual  splendor  from  the 
darkness    of    a    hopeless    grave  ;    so    much 


304  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

heavenly  truth,  or  truth  that  seems  so 
heavenly,  from  known  lies,  so  revolting  to 
any  pure  conscience,  so  alien  to  all  elevated 
hope,  so  inconsistent  with  any  moral  hero- 
ism, so  utterly  destructive  of  any  martyr 
spirit,  of  any  soul-sustaining  faith  !  Incred- 
ible, most  incredible  !  Almost  any  miracle 
is  more  worthy  of  belief ;  while,  in  contrast 
with  it,  the  holy,  the  consistent,  the  har- 
monious supernatural  of  Christ's  real  object- 
ive resurrection  becomes  the  most  credible, 
or,  to  use  again  our  seeming  paradox,  the 
most  natural  of  events. 

The  story  of  the  resurrection  is  subjectively 
the  most  truthful  of  narrations.  No  honest 
mind  can  avoid  feeling  this.  These  men  are 
telling  what  they  firmly  believe  to  be  facts. 
Such  visions  were  seen,  such  voices  were 
heard,  whether  subjective  or  objective  ;  it 
would  be  a  wrong  to  our  moral  nature  to 
doubt  it ;  such  an  influence  was  felt  as  of 
one  breathing  upon  them  a  heavenly  power 
and  spirit;  whether   as   undulations  of  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  305 

air  without,  or  proceeding  from  agitations 
moving  from  the  spirit  within,  such  words 
did  sound  in  their  ears  ;  they  heard  them 
distinctly  saying,  "Go  ye  forth  and  teach  all 
nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.'7  Whether  coming,  we  say,  from  the 
inner  man,  or  from  outward  impressions, 
these  sights,  these  sounds,  these  words  in 
their  sublime  coherence,  their  heavenly 
thought,  were  veritable  facts  in  their  psycho- 
logical experience.  They  lived  in  their  be- 
lief, they  conquered  in  their  power,  they  died 
in  their  obedience.  Is  it  held  to  have  been 
all  subjective  or  imaginative  ?  Be  it  so. 
We  believe  that  no  honest  mind  can  hold  to 
the  inward  here  and  yet  long  resist  the  im- 
pression of  the  outward  truthfulness.  But 
the  first  feature  is  sufficient  for  the  general 
argument  that  has  been  maintained  in  this 
book,  and,  on  this  account,  we  are  willing 
to  pass  b}r,  for  the  present,  those  narrations 
in  the   gospels  that  are  subsequent  to  the 


306  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

death  of  Christ.  Aside  from  its  extraordi- 
nary yet  most  natural  antecedents,  severed 
from  its  remarkable  consequents,  judged 
simply  as  a  very  marvellous  event  depend- 
ing merely  on  such  an  amount  of  human 
testimony,  it  would  present  a  different  aspect, 
and  might,  perhaps,  rationally  allow  some 
degree  of  honest  scepticism.  It  might  be 
ascribed  to  a  variety  of  outward  and  inward 
impressions  without  making  it  thus  a  greater 
wonder  than  would  be  the  admission  of  its 
actual  objective  truth.  But  such  is  far  from 
being  the  case  before  us.  It  had  these 
strange  antecedents,  it  had  these  wondrous, 
and,  except  on  one  supposition,  inexplicable 
consequents.  To  these,  therefore,  let  us 
pass,  in  accordance  with  the  method  steadily 
pursued  of  making  the  natural,  the  human, 
or  the  anthropopathic  in  the  Scriptures,  the 
ground-work  of  the  entire  and  continuous 
argument. 

"He    was   crucified,    dead    and    buried." 
And   here  the   remarkable   history  we  have 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  307 

traced  so  far  might  seem  to  have  come  to  a 
sudden  termination,  or  rather,  to  present 
a  most  mysterious  chasm.  Comparatively 
might  this  be  said  with  truth,  although  there 
is  a  narrow  line  of  continuance  contained  in 
the  book  called  "The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,57 
and  the  scanty  records  it  gives  us,  confined 
mainly  to  a  portion  of  the  labors  of  but  one, 
and  he  the  last  commissioned  of  the  Chris- 
tian messengers.  Has  it  occurred  to  the 
reader  how  little  is  told  us  anywhere  of  the 
other  apostles,  and  how  very  small  a  part 
this  book  must  be  of  the  whole  history  of 
the  establishment  of  Christ's  kingdom  on 
earth  ?  A  priori  we  must  believe  that  the 
solemn  commission  did  not  remain  a  dead 
letter,  but  must  have  been  most  faithfully 
and  extensively  fulfilled.  The  remains  of 
ecclesiastical  tradition,  above  all  the  labors 
unrecorded  yet  proved  by  their  effects,  the 
new  life  everywhere  made  known,  the 
churches  planted  from  Malabar  to  Britain, 
from  the  Goths  to  the  Arabians  and  Abyssin- 


308  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ians,  attest  the  presence  of  other  messen- 
gers, but  of  the  same  message,  the  same 
preaching,  the  same  story  of  the  cross,  the 
same  central  doctrine  of  one  who  had  risen 
from  the  dead,  and  become  a  newly  risen 
life  in  all  who  received  him  into  their  souls  by 
faith  ;  but  of  all  this  there  are  no  authentic 
contemporary  records.  Leaving  out,  then, 
for  the  present,  this  narrow  stream  which 
we  find  in  the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  we  have,  in  the  main,  and  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  world  and  of  the  Church's 
history,  the  wondrous  fact  to  which  we  would 
here  call  attention. 

"He  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried." 
Here,  then,  with  the  exception  mentioned, 
begins  one  of  the  strangest  chasms  in  history, 
— the  stumbling  chasm  to  some,  and  yet,  to 
a  right  view,  methinks,  more  truly  marvel- 
lous, and  thus  more  faith-confirming,  than 
any  filling  up,  had  it  been  all  as  fully  given 
as  the  narrative  of  Paul  in  the  Acts.  But 
even  this  soon  leaves  us.     The  continuation 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  309 

after  Christ  left  the  earth  is  like  a  narrow- 
bridge  over  a  strange  depth,  and  even  that 
terminates  before  it  spans  half  the  dark 
abyss.  How  little  this  is,  every  intelligent 
reader  feels,  and  yet  it  is  all  we  have  till  we 
come  clown  nearly  to  the  days  of  Justin 
Martyr.  But  what  a  mighty  work  had  been 
accomplished  between  !  Our  first  feeling  is 
that  of  subdued  complaint.  Why  could  not 
more  have  been  given  us  of  this  deeply  in- 
teresting period  ?  Why  could  it  not  have 
been  filled  up,  if  for  no  other  reason,  to 
baffle  the  Anti-Christian  critics  who  wrould 
build  in  this  historical  waste  their  imagina- 
tive theories,  and  find  room  therein  for  the 
dates  of  their  traditionary  and  apocryphal 
gospels  ?  But  there  it  stands,  the  unbridged 
chasm  over  which  no  critical  research  can 
find  a  way.  On  one  side  the  death  and 
burial  of  Christ  ;  on  the  other  this  newT  and 
wondrous  life  now  working  such  moral 
miracles  in  the  Roman  world.  A  greater 
wonder,  we   repeat  it,  than    any   filling  up. 


310  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

The  slender  narrative  alluded  to,  though  ex- 
tending so  little  of  the  way,  and  so  abruptly 
terminating,  is  sufficient  to  show  the  un- 
earthly  spirit,  and  the  irresistible  energy  of 
this  new  power,  whilst  the  silent  blank  that 
remains  prepares  the  thoughtful  mind  for 
the  contemplation  of  that  real  marvel, 
which,  though  Gibbon  could  not  see  it,  is, 
in  fact,  the  greatest  miracle  in  the  chronicles 
of  our  earth.  Here  was  wrought  the  great- 
est change  in  the  ordinary  flow  of  human 
acts,  and  human  opinions.  The  dividing 
of  the  Red  sea,  the  turning  back  of  the 
waters  of  Jordan,  did  not  equal  it.  Never 
was  there  such  an  apparent  effect  in  the 
absence  of  all  assignable  earthly  causes, 
natural,  moral,  social,  political,  or  philo- 
sophical !  Such  a  transition  period  stands 
alone  in  history.  It  is  like  one  of  those 
awful  pauses  in  the  physical  progress,  where, 
in  the  mighty  visible  effect,  science  traces 
the  existence  of  a  new  creating  power,  and 
yet  that  power  has  worked  unseen.     It  hath 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  311 

veiled  its  operation,  until  it  stands  revealed 
in  the  new  result,  the  new  order  of  things  it 
has  initiated  in  nature.  The  new  light 
shows  the  hidden  power.  It  is  more  start- 
ling than  though  all  along  this  transition  in- 
terval there  had  been  a  series  of  visible 
miraculous  displays,  linking  the  old  with  the 
new  order  of  things.  We  come  down  to 
the  brink  of  the  last  traceable  causation, 
and  we  know  that  the  supernatural,  though 
we  see  it  not,  must  somewhere  have  come 
between,  for  here  is  something  which  the 
old  nature,  the  old  causation,  never  could 
have  produced.  Such  is  the  effect  of  this 
blank,  or  apparent  blank,  in  the  Church's 
history.  To  the  thoughtful  mind  folios  of 
miracles,  and  of  minute  details  of  apostolical 
labors,  would  not  produce  a  deeper  feeling  of 
the  wonder-working  power  of  God. 

It  is,  too,  well  worth  bearing  in  mind,  that 
it  is  this  interval  which  separates  the  in- 
spired from  the  human  waitings  of  the 
Church.    May  we  not  say,  with  all  reverence, 


ol2  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

that  in  this,  too,  may  be  discovered  marks 
of  a  superhuman  wisdom  ?  Had  there  been 
an  uninterrupted  continuance  of  writings, 
and  ecclesiastical  annals,  there  might  have 
been  some  ground  for  the  argument  which 
would  blend  them  all  in  one,  and  place  the 
patristic  on  the  same  or  a  similar  ground  of 
authority  with  the  apostolical.  This  sharp 
line  coming  between,  or,  rather,  this  im- 
passable interval,  was  necessary  for  that 
feeling  of  reverence  which  puts  the  one 
class  of  books  at  an  unapproachable  distance 
from  all  others.  They  are  parted  in  time 
and  position,  as  well  as  by  the  awful 
superiority  of  thought  that  characterizes  the 
immediate  messengers  of  Christ.  Hence 
that  veneration  for  the  apostolical  writings 
so  remarkable  in  the  earliest  subsequent 
writings  of  the  church.  In  the  days  of 
Clement,  "Holy  Scripture"  is  quoted  as  the 
inspired  word  of  God,  separate  from  all 
other  books,  and  with  as  religious  a  rever- 
ence   as   even   now   after    an    awe-creating 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  313 

lapse  of  eighteen  hundred  years.  Such  is 
the  voice  of  the  true  tradition,  setting  aside 
the  claims  that  are  falsely  made  for  it  as  of 
equal,  or  even  collateral,  authority  with  the 
Scriptures.  It  is.  indeed,  the  earliest  and 
most  universal  tradition,  superseding  all 
other  traditions,  that  the  books  of  the  old 
and  new  Testaments,  the  latest  of  which  are 
the  apostolical  epistles,  stand  apart  from  all 
human  writings  however  religious, — that 
they  are,  in  truth,  the  books  that  contain,  in 
the  most  unrivalled  degree  and  manner,  the 
divine  faith,  or  the  mind  of  God  as  revealed 
to  man. 

11  He  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried." 
We  left  the  Saviour  sleeping  in  the  tomb  of 
Joseph.  A  brief  history  follows,  and  then 
all  is  dark.  Now  look  down  the  intervening 
waste.  We  discover  the  light  again  in  the 
brief  writings  and  still  briefer  accounts  of 
the  earliest  fathers.  It  is  enough  to  show 
that  the  world  has  changed  ;  a  new  era  has 
begun.  The  new  force  has  not  yet  become 
14 


314  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

very  visible  in  political  history,  but  it  is  be- 
yond all  doubt  alive  and  working  mightily. 
It  is  manifesting  itself  in  signs  of  portentous 
change.     The  ages  have  taken  a  step  in  pro- 
gress from  which  they  can  never  wholly  go 
back.     Unknown  as  yet  to  statesmen    and 
philosophers,  the  transforming  power  is  intro- 
ducing elements  of  thought  and  feeling  that 
must  soon  affect  the  whole  outward  face  as 
well  as  the  deep  foundation  of  Roman  society. 
Whence  came  it  ?     From  philosophy  ?     That 
had  virtually  died  generations  before  ;  the 
schools  had  become  barren  ;  it  wTas  centuries 
since  they  had  borne  any  children  like  Pythag- 
oras, Socrates,  or  Plato  ;  the   questions  dis- 
cussed by  wrangling  Stoics  and  Epicureans 
were  dead  scholasticisms  ;  Sophists  yet  talked 
of  aQUTT],   and  disputed  about  the  summum 
bonum,  but  no  one  expected  that  their  lives 
should  correspond  to  their  ethical  precepts. 
The  whole   story  is  told  by  Lucian,  scoffer 
as  he  was  against  Christianity  as  well  as  the 
old   mythology.      Did   this    mighty  change 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  315 

originate  in  any  silent  working  of  any  po- 
litical or  social  movements?  These  were 
all  tending  to  anarchy  or  despotism.  Phi- 
lanthropy hardly  existed  even  in  theory,  and 
morality  had  almost  perished  from  the  earth. 
But  a  new  morning  is  certainly  breaking  on 
the  world.  The  ancient  vision  is  drawing 
nigh.  The  New  Jerusalem  is  coming  down 
from  Heaven.  The  "  feet  of  the  Messengers 
are  seen  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains." 
Arise,  0  City  of  our  God — "  Arise,  shine, 
for  thy  Light  is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  is  dawning  upon  thee.  For  lo  !  dark- 
ness covers  the  earth,  and  thick  darkness  the 
nations,  but  the  Lord  is  rising  upon  thee, 
and  his  glory  is  seen  upon  thee.  And  the 
Gentiles  are  coming  to  thy  light,  and  kings 
to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising.  Lift  up  thine 
eyes  and  see  ;  they  are  hastening  to  thee, 
thy  sons  from  far,  thy  daughters  are  carried 
at  thy  side  ;  the  multitudes  of  the  sea  are 
turning  to  thee,  the  powers  of  the  nations 
are  becoming  thine."     Whence,  we  may  ask 


316  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

again,  this  new  light?  It  has  shone  forth 
from  the  darkness  of  that  garden  sepulchre. 
Whence  this  new  life  ?  It  has  come  from  the 
tomb  of  that  crucified  One.  Here  was,  in- 
deed, a  resurrection  undeniable.  It  brings  its 
own  attestation  ;  it  has  come  clown  the  stream 
of  ages  ;  it  is  now  with  us, — this  unearthly 
power  ;  the  books  that  record  its  early  deeds, 
the  strange  doctrines  so  different  from  any- 
thing conceived  by  human  thought,  and 
which  have  ever  accompanied  it — these  are 
still  with  us,  still,  as  of  old,  challenging  the 
intellect  of  the  world  to  account  for  them  on 
any  known  natural  process  of  mere  human 
development.  In  our  reason's  awe,  if  not  in 
our  sense-wonder,  can  we  still  feel  the  power 
of  this  standing  miracle  ;  and,  thus  prepared, 
it  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  believe  in  the  per- 
sonal resurrection  of  that  divine  man  from 
whose  grave  there  has  certainly  flowed  forth 
such  a  life-giving,  earth-transforming  force. 
Thus  prepared,  we  feel  that  this  resurrection 
of  which  the  Apostles  say  so  much,  must  be 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  317 

something  more  than  a  figure,  more  than  a 
mere  rationalistic  revival  of  truth  however 
transcendent.  Examine  it  as  we  find  it  in 
its  early  transition  state, — examine  it  as  it 
appears  when  the  current  of  the  world's  his- 
tory embraces  it  never  more  to  be  lost.  It 
was  not  such  an  influence  as  came  forth  from 
the  grave  of  Socrates.  It  was  not  a  school, 
a  doctrine  merely,  a  system  of  philosophy. 
Nothing  of  this  kind,  no  mere  truth,  or 
truths,  addressed  to  the  intellect,  had  ever 
before  possessed,  or  would  then  have  possess- 
ed, the  power  of  thus  stirring  and  trans- 
forming the  souls  of  men.  It  was  a  real  life, 
and  no  figure  ;  it  was  something  more  than 
even  divine  truth  regarded  in  its  rational  and 
moral  effect ;  it  was  a  motion  in  the  world,  as 
real  and  vital  a  motion  as  ever  flowed  in  the 
physical  creations,  or  in  the  old  humanity. 
The  bearers  of  this  new  energy  did  not  regard 
themselves  as  merely  messengers  of  truth 
however  high  and  heavenly.  This  was,  in- 
deed, an  important  part  of  their  mission,  but 


318  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

not  its  essence.  They  carry  with  them  him 
who  was  not  only  "  the  Way  and  the  Truth," 
but  also  "the  Life."  They  bring  into  the 
world  a  new  vital  power  and  the  divinely  ac- 
companying grace  of  dispensing  it.  It  is  the 
life  of  a  man  who  died  that]it  might  be  thus 
imparted.  This  risen  life,  risen  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  risen  in  the  quickening  of  the 
flesh,  this  new  humanity,  they  proclaim,  they 
offer,  they  actually  bring  to  men.  How  com- 
municated, through  what  media,  organic, 
sacramental,  ineffable — these  are  questions 
we  leave  to  others,  if  others  shall  ever  be 
able  to  settle  them.  It  is  the  great  fact  itself 
to  which  attention  is  called,  the  great 
thought  we  find  everywhere  in  the  writings 
and  preaching  of  Paul,  and  which  presents 
itself  as  the 'strange  feature  of  Christianity 
when  the  gospel  stream  unites !  with  the 
moving  history  of  the  world.  The  interest 
taken  since  the  Reformation  in  the  doctrine 
of  Justification  by  Faith,  and  the  vast  im- 
portance of  its  revival  from  the  mediaeval 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  319 

semi-paganism,  have  made  us  lose  sight  too 
much  of  this  stronger  and  still  more  essen- 
tial feature  of  the  early  Church  theology. 
Hence  has  come  such  a  change  of  language 
as  makes  it  less  easy  to  understand  the 
Patristic  writings.  But  in  the  primitive 
Church  it  was  a  reality  affecting  every  other 
aspect  of  the  Christian  truth.  Christ  was  in 
the  Christian,  as  he  was  in  the  Church  his 
earthly  body.  It  was  no  figure  employed  to 
represent  a  mere  following,  or  discipleship. 
His  life  was  in  their  life.  Hence  his  suffer- 
ings were  their  sufferings,  his  resurrectiou 
not  only  the  pledge  but  the  ground  of  the 
new  life  then  working  in  their  souls,  and 
destined,  eventually,  to  quicken  their  mortal 
bodies  ;  and  so  his  satisfaction  to  law  was 
their  satisfaction,  his  obedience  their  obedi- 
ence, his  righteousness  their  righteousness 
imputed  to  them  rightly,  because  it  was 
really  theirs  as  it  was  really  his.  They  were 
Christophori,  Christ-bearers,  Theophori.  How 
prevalent  was  this  feeling,  how  universally 


320  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

the  idea  entered  into  the  mind  of  the  early 
Church,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
heathen  satirists  derided  these  fanatics,  as 
they  were  fond  of  calling  them,  for  the  mad 
notion  that  they  carried  their  God  with 
them,  in  their  souls. 

The  new  idea  had  introduced  a  new  mode 
of  speech.  Justin  Martyr  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  dialectics  of  Platonism,  but  how 
different  the  style  of  language  employed  by 
him,  after  his  conversion,  from  that  of  any 
school  of  philosophy?  How  different  the 
language  of  the  same  Justin  Martyr,  as  a 
disciple  of  Plato  and  a  disciple  of  Christ ! 
He  was  learning  the  vernacular  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,  that  city  of  our  God  below, 

"  Where  Egypt,  Tyre,  and  Greek,  and  Jew, 
Began  their  speech  and  lives  anew." 

It  was  indeed  new  and  glorious  truth  to 
which  he  had  awaked,  but  this  was  far 
from  expressing  the  peculiarity  of  his  new 
state.      It  was  not  merely  another  system 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  321 

of  philosophy  he  had  found.  He  is  now 
Christophorus,  Christ-bearing.  The  dead 
man's  life,  given  for  the  Church,  had  become 
his  life  ;  he  lived  henceforth  in  the  risen 
vitality  of  the  crucified  Redeemer. 

Eyo)  iv  avtolg — "j  in  them,11  says  the 
Saviour,  in  His  intercessory  prayer.  There 
is  the  same  idea  in  that  frequent  language 
of  the  Apostle,  iv  Xqiotw,  uin  Christ,11  and 
the  corresponding  expression  Xqiotoq  iv 
vfilv,  "  Christ  in  you.11  Are  these  figures,  we 
ask  again,  or  do  they  denote  the  most  vital 
of  realities?  The  relation  of  a  teacher  to 
those  who  adopted  his  system  of  truth,  how- 
ever high,  even  though  it  included,  as  truth 
merely,  the  highest  verities  of  the  Christian 
faith, — such  a  relation  would  seem  to  fall 
below  the  significance  of  language  so  strange, 
so  new,  so  evidently  called  out  by  the  exi- 
gency of  a  new  and  strange  idea.  It  may 
come  very  natural  to  us  now  to  treat  it  as  a 
figure,  but  then,  it  should  be  remembered, 
it  was  without  precedent  in  the  world.  It  had 
14* 


322  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

with  it  no  such  associations  of  thought,  either 
for  the  cultivated  or  the  common  mind.  The 
language  had  never  before  been  heard.  'Ev 
Mwofj,  in  Moses,  would  have  sounded  as 
strange  for  such  a  purpose  as  iv  TUcckovi,  iv 
Zrpwvi,  in  Plato,  or  in  Zeno.  Discipleship 
had  never  been  thus  expressed  before  Christ 
said,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the 
end  of  the  world." 

Such,  then,  was  their  warrant  for  going 
forth  ;  they  carried  the  Saviour  with  them, — 
not  his  teachings,  not  his  truth  merely,  not 
his  doctrines  alone,  though  it  were  the  doc- 
trine of  the  cross,  not  any  mere  power  given 
to  the  truth,  if  we  can  understand  what  that 
means,  but  Christ  himself.  Teacher  and 
taught  were  alike  iv  Xqiotio,  and  the  evidence 
that  the  former  was  a  true  Apostle  came 
from  the  fact  that  his  ministrations  were 
followed  by  this  new  life  in  his  converts, 
whether  manifested  in  the  outward  miracu- 
lous gifts,  or  the  more  inward  sanctifying 
grace.     ' '  Ye  seek  a  proof  of  Christ  speaking 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  323 

in  me,"  rov  iv  tfioi  lalovvroq  Xqiotov,  says 
the  Apostle,  2  Corinth,  xiii,  3  :  "  Prove  your 
own  selves  ;  know  ye  not  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  in  you  unless  ye  be  addmpoi,  unproved — 
reprobates  ?" 

This  style  of  speech  is  not  employed  in 
the  Old  Testament.  It  can  be  traced  to  the 
influence  of  no  Jewish  schools  or  sects. 
Neither  among  Pharisees,  nor  Sadducees, 
nor  Essenes,  is  there  to  be  found  anything 
like  it.  It  is  as  utterly  unknown  to  any 
Rabbinical  as  to  any  classical  usage.  What 
then  is  its  fair  meaning?  May  it  not  be 
that  in  modern  times  we  have  fallen  below 
it,  have  treated  it  too  much  as  a  mere  figure, 
or7  if  it  be  a  figure,  have  suffered  our  ration- 
alizing glosses  to  warp  us  away  from  that 
most  inward  and  vital  significance  which 
alone  could  have  demanded  and  made  uni- 
versal so  strange  a  metaphor  ?  We  venture 
to  say  that  this  is  now  the  great  question  of 
the  Church.  Until  this  matter  of  interpreta- 
tion is  settled,  our  other  polemics  are  com- 


32-4  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

paratively  of  little  importance.  Let  it  be 
once  thus  settled  in  real,  and  not  merely 
rhetorical,  accordance  with  primitive  usage, 
and  many  other  theological  discords  might 
be  resolved  that  now  seem  utterly  unmanage- 
able. 

It  was  certainly  something  more  than  a 
figure  to  the  writer  who  so  extensively  em- 
ploys it.  The  Pauline  language  and  the 
Pauline  doctrine  seem  wholly  built  upon  it. 
From  it,  too,  grows  out  all  the  Apostle's  per- 
sonal experience.  He  talks  like  a  man  who 
would  seem  to  have,  in  some  measure,  lost 
his  old  personal  identity.  There  is  still  the 
continuity  of  memory  and  consciousness  ; 
the  old  Adam  is  indeed  well  remembered, 
but  along  with  all  this  there  is  a  new  hu- 
manity, as  real  and  as  vital  as  the  first. 
After  his  conversion  he  is  no  longer  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  but  "  a  man  in  Christ."  "  i"  know  a 
man  in  Christ,"  he  says — so  it  should  be  ren- 
dered, and  not  /  knew—olda  avAqconov  iv 
Xqiovw — "  I  know  a  man  in  Christ  who  was 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  325 

caught  up  to  the  third  heaven :"  "  Of  such  an 
one  will  I  glory,  but  of  myself  (my  old  self) 
I  will  not  glory."  How  few  are  the  verses 
we  can  read  continuously  in  the  writings  of 
this  fervid  Christian  without  finding  some- 
thing to  remind  us  of  this  idea  ?  Whatever 
may  be  the  matter  or  doctrine  treated  of 
how  soon  does  it  come  round  to  that  loved 
name  so  constantly  identified  with  his  new 
personal  being,  Christ  Jesus,  or  in  his  own 
soft  Syriac  vernacular,  Yesu  Meshiho,  so  oft 
in  its  occurrence  beyond  what  is  to  be  found 
in  any  other  parts  of  the  Bible  !  Place  the 
Pauline  epistles  where  we  may,  they  might 
be  detected,  without  other  proof,  by  the 
very  sight  of  this  word  striking  the  eye  in 
every  page,  and  in  almost  every  verse.  If 
we  are  authorized  to  judge  by  the  force  and 
frequency  and  tenderness  with  which  he 
employs  it,  Christ  was  in  Paul  as  really  and 
truly  as  he  ever  walked  by  the  sea  of  Gali- 
lee, or  talked  with  his  disciples  in  the 
flesh  ;  as   really  and  truly  as  he  personally 


326  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

died  on  the  cross,  and  rose  again  from  the 
dead. 

We  study  Christ  in  Paul  ;  may  we  venture 
to  say  it?  The  writer  would  speak  with 
caution  here,  and  yet  the  opinion  may  be 
advanced,  that  we  learn  more  of  Christ,  of 
the  mind  and  heart  of  Christ,  as  he  is  mani- 
fested in  this  noble  Apostle,  than  in  the  rec- 
ords of  the  evangelists  themselves.  He  comes 
nearer  to  us,  we  see  him  more  distinctly,  we 
converse  with  him  more  intimately,  he  is 
more  tender,  more  human,  as  thus  seen  in 
the  "Christ-bearing"  disciple,  than  in  his 
outward  words  and  acts  as  recorded  in  the 
gospel  narrations.  By  such  language  we 
do  not  underrate  those  precious  portions  of 
the  Scripture.  Christ  is  near  to  us,  very 
near  to  us,  as  he  appears  in  his  life  on  earth  ; 
he  is  still  nearer  to  us — may  we  venture  to 
say  it? — as  he  is  risen  in  the  Church.  As 
God  the  Father  conies  to  us  in  Christ — so  may 
we  not  venture  reverently  to  say  ? — Christ 
comes  nigh  to  us  in  his  holy  people,  in  the 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  327 

souls  of  true  Christians,  and,  above  all,  as 
he  is  so  brightly  manifested  in  the  words 
and  acts  of  him  who  labored  more  than  all, 
and  who,  whilst  rejoicing  in  the  new  life, 
was  ever  willing  to  give  his  earthly  life  for 
the  Lord  Jesus. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

The  Apostle    Paul  —  Compared   with    other    Apostles  —  The 
Transformation  of  Peter  —  Paul  compared  with  James  and  John 

—  Paul  the  Apostle  of  Faith  —  James  of  Works  —  John  of  Love 

—  Injustice  of  this  Comparison  —  The  World  regards  Paul  as 
the  Dogmatist  —  Same  Injustice,  to  some  extent,  in  the  Church 

—  The  Pauline  Ethics  —  Paul  the  most  practical  of  Moralists  — 
Abundance  of  his  Ethical  Precepts— The  Heavenly  Love  as  ex- 
hibited by  John  —  As  exhibited  by  Paul.  His  Picture  of  Char- 
ity —  The  exuberant  Tenderness  of  his  Language — The  Pauline 
Philanthropy  —  Compared  with  the  Secular  —  Incidents  in  the 
Apostle's  Life  and  Labors  —  Their  Truthfulness  —  Paul  no  Fa- 
natic —  His  Moderation  —  His  Preference  of  the  Moral  to  the  Mi- 
raculous —  Thinks  more  of  Charity  than  of  Gifts  —  The  Ideal 
unexplained  by  the  Corresponding  Actual  a  greater  Miracle  than 
the  Actual  itself.     Strauss  to  be  met  on  his  own  ground. 

The  labors  and  writings  of  the  other  Apos- 
tles would  furnish  like  examples  of  this  new 
soul-phenomenon.  What  thoughtful  mind, 
awake  to  the  wonderful  in  anthropology,  can 
fail  to  be  struck  with  the  difference  between 
the  epistles  of  Peter  so  glowing  with  divin- 
est  thought,  and  the  narrow  self-ignorance, — 
we  might  almost  say,  stupidity, — of  the  same 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  321) 

man  when  in  the  immediate  company,  and 
enjoying  the  personal  instructions,  of  the 
Great  Teacher  on  earth  !  Peter  before  and 
after  the  day  of  Pentecost — what  a  transfor- 
mation, what  a  resurrection  had  intervened! 
Equally  true  are  these  thoughts  of  all  the 
others  ;  but  we  have  dwelt  upon  the  writings 
and  works  of  Paul  chiefly  because  of  a  strong 
conviction  that  not  only  in  the  world,  but  in 
the  Church,  there  has  been  more  or  less  of  per- 
sonal injustice  in  the  estimate  formed  of  his 
natural  and  his  Christian  character.  Among 
the  irreligious  Paul  is  very  generally  regarded 
as  representing  the  harsher  features  of  Chris- 
tianity. Infidels  and  rationalists  are  fond  of 
placing  him  in  contrast  with  Christ;  they  speak 
of  him  as  bigoted,  intolerant,  dogmatic,  de- 
nunciatory, delighting  in  the  stern  and  gloomy 
doctrinal,  in  distinction  from  a  practical  and 
loving  morality, — all  this  in  the  face  of  the 
fact,  which  can  be  so  easily  tested,  that  all 
the  Pauline  Epistles  contain  not  so  much 
that   is   condemnatory  and  severe   as  some 


330  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

single  discourses  of  the  merciful  Saviour. 
And  so  in  the  Church  ;  there  has  been  mani- 
fested with  some  a  disposition  to  compare 
him  unfavorably  with  the  Apostle  John. 
Paul  is  indeed  commended ;  his  zeal,  his 
Christian  heroism  are  described  in  the  most 
glowing  terms  ;  it  is  admitted  that  he  was 
"the  man  for  the  times."  But  then  he  is 
set  forth  as  the  Apostle  of  faith,  of  dogmas, 
and  these,  too,  of  the  harsher  kind,  whilst 
James  is  the  representative  of  practical  mo- 
rality, and  John  of  the  milder  and  more 
heavenly  principle  of  love. 

But  surely  there  is  a  great  mistake  here. 
Certain  habits  of  thought  have  led  good  men, 
and  even  profound  men,  into  comparisons 
that  seem  wholly  unwarranted  when  we  ex- 
amine, for  that  purpose,  the  writings  and 
histories  of  the  blessed  servants  of  Christ. 
It  may  be  thought  irreverent  to  have  any 
preferences  among  them  ;  each  has  his  own 
peculiar  Christian  excellence  ;  but  an  impar- 
tial examination  would  show  that  the  prac- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  331 

tical  ethical  precepts  of  Paul  not  only  exceed 
those  of  James,  but  of  all  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament,  Evangelists  and  Apostles 
combined.  Sublime  as  is  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  holy  as  it  is  in  every  line  and 
letter,  yet  is  there  about  it  an  air  of  author- 
ity ;  it  has  a  preceptual,  ethical  form ;  and 
these,  whilst  they  render  it  more  majestic, 
more  commanding,  more  divine,  do  also — we 
would  say  it  with  all  reverence — make  it 
less  human,  less  tender,  than  those  chapters 
of  Romans  and  Ephesians  where  the  spirit 
of  these  heavenly  canons  so  lovingly  appears 
in  the  most  moving  exhortations  to  the  daily 
Christian  life.  There  it  was  Christ  the  Law- 
giver, the  Prophet,  the  Master,  the  Great 
Teacher  ;  here  it  is  Christ  the  risen  Saviour, 
Christ  in  Paul,  giving  the  same  precepts  to 
a  beloved  Church,  recognized  as  his  own 
members,  his  own  living  body,  deriving  its 
ethical  life  from  Him  as  its  own  living  Head. 
Paul,  it  is  said,  is  the  representative  of 
faith — John,  of  love.    Such  a  contrast  is  un- 


332  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

just  to  both.  Each  of  them,  it  may  rather 
be  held,  represents  that  "faith  which  works 
by  love,"  and  that  love  which  faith  in  the 
risen  life  of  the  Crucified  elevates  into  a 
vital  affection  of  fraternity,  far  transcending 
any  abstract  benevolence  grounded  on  secu- 
lar ideas  or  any  merely  secular  reasoning. 
In  the  beloved  apostle,  this  holy  affection 
takes  more  of  the  quietistic  form.  It  is 
paternal  rather  than  fraternal.  It  is  a  sweet 
and  calm  emotion,  having  more  of  the  pure- 
ly heavenly,  and  less  of  that  divine-human 
which  so  powerfully  affects  us,  or  should 
affect  us,  in  the  burning  words  of  Paul. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  Scriptures,  unless  we 
except  the  declarations  of  the  Saviour's  love, 
can  there  be  found  language  of  such  exquis- 
ite tenderness.  And  it  is  everywhere. 
Hardly  can  there  be  found  a  doctrine,  a 
precept,  an  exhortation,  an  interpretation, 
from  which  the  writer  does  not  soon  turn 
to  express  his  love  to  Christ ;  and  nearly  as 
frequent  is  the  exhibition  of  the  same  Ian- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  333 

guage  towards  those  whom  he  believes  to 
be  in  Christ,  his  spiritual  kinsmen,  his  very 
dear  brethren,  yea,  nearer  than  brethren  in 
the  natural  humanity,  even  members  of  the 
same  spiritual  body,  partakers  of  the  same 
heavenly  life  as  derived  from  the  same  risen 
and  exalted  Head.  The  language  of  John 
is  general ;  it  specifies  not  those  relations  in 
which  the  emotion  of  Christian  love  has  its 
peculiarly  human  intensity.  Along  with  its 
delightful  simplicity,  it  has  something  of 
the  rapt  and  mystic  air.  "Little  children, 
love  one  another :  he  that  loveth  his  brother 
abideth  in  the  light  :  he  that  loveth  not, 
abideth  in  death.  We  know  that  we  have 
passed  from  death  to  life  because  we  love 
the  brethren  :  Beloved,  let  us  love  one 
another,  for  love  is  of  God,  and  every  one 
that  loveth  is  born  of  God,  and  knoweth 
God  :  he  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God ; 
for  God  is  love.'7  Here  is  the  transcending 
height  of  the  wrapt  contemplative  soul. 
But  Paul  describes  the  same  divine  affection 


334  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

by  its  human  motions  in  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness. How  heavenly  and  yet  how 
near  to  our  human  hearts  is  such  language 
as  this  :  "  Love  suffereth  long  and  is  kind  ; 
love  envieth  not,  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not 
puffed  up  ;  love  seeketh  not  her  own, 
thinketh  no  evil ;  beareth  all  things,  believ- 
eth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things,  enclureth  all 
things ;  love  never  faileth."  Or  he  sets 
forth  these  throbbings  of  the  new  life  as  the 
opposites  of  the  old  human  selfishness  and 
malevolence  :  "  Let  all  bitterness,  and  wrath, 
and  anger,  and  clamor,  and  evil-speaking, 
be  put  away  from  you  with  all  malice  :  and 
be  ye  kind  one  to  another,  tender-hearted, 
forgiving  one  another,  even  as  G-od,  for 
Christ's  sake,  hath  forgiven  you."  Again, 
they  are  presented  to  us  as  the  richest 
growth  of  the  heavenly  grace  :  For  the 
fruit  of  the  spirit  is  love,"  and  with  love 
come  u  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness, 
goodness,  faith  ;  that  Christ  may  dwell  in 
your  hearts  by  faith  ;  that  ye,  being  rooted 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  335 

in  love,  and  built  on  the  foundation  of  love, 
may  be  able  to  comprehend,  with  all  saints, 
what  is  the  length,  and  breadth,  and  depth, 
and  height  of  love,  and  to  know  that  love 
of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge  ;  that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God." 
This  the  language  of  the  dogmatist,  of  the 
harsh  preacher  of  an  antinomian  faith ! 
How  unjustly,  how  ignorantly,  do  the  world, 
and  many  professedly  in  the  Church,  judge 
of  this  noble  servant  of  Jesus !  He  has 
been  regarded  as  the  austere  apostle,  but 
how  he  loved  even  his  persecuting  brethren 
the  Jews !  Hear  him,  too,  how  he  pours 
out  his  soul  in  love  for  Christians,  and 
especially  his  spiritual  children  in  Christ  : 
"For  we  were  gentle  in  the  midst  of  you, 
even  as  a  nurse  nourisheth  her  children  ; 
thus  longing  for  you,  ipuQOLUiVoi,  being  af- 
fectionately desirous  of  you,  we  were  willing 
to  impart  unto  you  not  only  the  gospel  of 
God,  but  our  own  souls,  because  ye  were 
ayanrjToi,  very  dear   unto  us  ;   and   ye  are 


386  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

witnesses,  and  G-od  is  witness,  how  holily, 
and  righteously,  and  unblamably  we  behav- 
ed ourselves  among  you  that  believed." 

But  in  all  this  there  is  another  question 
than  the  personal  character  of  Paul.  It  has 
reference  to  the  origin  of  these  divine  ideas, 
and  these  new  emotions  associated  with 
them, — this  new  love  to  man  so  born  of  the 
still  deeper  love  to  a  crucified  and  risen 
Redeemer:  "Christ  in  you  the  hope  of 
glory  :"  "  For  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in 
God,  and  when  Christ  who  is  your  life,  shall 
appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  with  him 
in  glory  :"  £©  dt  ova  in  iy<b,  trj  de  iv  iaol 
XyHruogf  "I  live,  yet  no  longer  I,  it  is 
Christ  that  liveth  in  me."  Where  did  Paul 
get  this  divine  thought,  so  far  transcending 
Plato,  of  a  new  and  heavenly  life  lived  here 
on  earth,  iv  Trj  QvrjTfj  oaqyl,  "in  this  our 
mortal  flesh?"  f  In  what  school  of  philos- 
oph}'  did    he  learn  this  psychological    mys- 

*  Galat.  II.,  20.  \  2  Corinth,  iw,  11. 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  337 

tery  of  a  new  humanity,  connecting  itself 
vitally  with  the  old  manhood,  and  elevating 
it  to  its  own  celestial  sphere,  so  that  Chris- 
tians here  might  have  their  "citizenship" 
with  the  Ecclesia  above,  and  thus  "be  made 
to  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus  ?"  Call  them  figures  if  you  will,  still 
the  wonder  remains ;  whence  these  un- 
earthly figures,  and  these  unearthly  doctrines 
demanding  a  language  so  unknown  to  all 
the  world  before  ?  There  is  but  one  answer 
to  these  questions,  and  on  that  answer  is 
grounded  the  immovable  evidence  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  Scriptures. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  how,  in  the  hands 
of  Paul,  even  the  secular,  or  merely  ethical, 
benevolence  rises  to  a  higher  spiritual  de- 
gree. As  modified  by  the  new  life,  and  the 
new  idea,  it  is  no  longer  the  barren  earthly 
philanthropy.  Utilitarian  it  may  still  be  call- 
ed, but  it  is  the  transcendental  or  heavenly 
utilities  it  now  brings  with  it,  and  which  so 
distinguish  it  from  any  classical  or  heathen 
15 


338  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

virtue,  as  well  as  from  any  modern  casuistry 
that  may  claim  the  name.     It  is  the  celes- 
tial "Eqwq,  the  immortal  Love,  the  love-pro- 
ducing love,   the  virtue-bearing  virtue,  the 
Grace  the  mother  of  other  graces.    The  dead 
antinomian  faith  says,  "  Be  ye  warmed,  be  ye 
clothed,  but  giveth  not  ;  the  secular  philan- 
thropy gives  warmth  to  the  body,  clothing 
to    the    earthly   nakedness  ;  —  it    strives  to 
make  men  comfortable,  and  in  confining  it- 
self to  this,    may  ofttimes   breed  that  very 
worldliness  in  which  itself  as  well  as  all  higher 
charity  expires.     But  the   Pauline  benevo- 
lence, the  Christian  benevolence,  warms  the 
soul.     The  secular  becomes  the  subordinate 
value,    and,   in  this  way,  paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem,   is    actually  increased    by  being 
made  subordinate,  whilst  the  heavenly  utility 
appears  in  the  new  virtue,  the  new  grace  it 
generates,  or  tends  to  generate,  in  both  the 
giver  and    the    recipient.      How  sublimely 
does  the  Scripture  charity  here  rise  above  that 
of  any  classical  or  heathen  morals  !     Surely 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES. 

must  a  soul  be  blind  not  to  see  that  there 
had  now  come  into  the  world  a  new  light, 
a  new  love,  a  new  and  heavenly  principle  of 
action.  Its  great  value  is  not  so  much  its 
worldly  good  as  its  spiritual  reproductiveness. 
It  produces  love  in  other  souls,  and,  thus 
regarded  as  a  state  of  the  spirit,  is  a  higher 
thing  and  of  higher  worth  than  happiness, 
though  necessarily  connected  with  it.  Charity 
enriches  the  giver  with  grace,  and  makes  the 
recipient  a  better  man.  It  cherishes  devo- 
tion, it  strengthens  faith,  brings  out  a  rich 
harvest  of  thanksgiving  to  God,  and  thus 
contributes  to  that  great  end  of  moral  action, 
— the  divine  glory.  Beautifully  is  all  this  set 
forth  by  Paul  (2  Corinthians  ix,  12);  it  is 
in  fact  the  idea  which  renders  clear  a  passage 
that  has  seemed  to  some  commentators  to 
present  no  little  obscurity  :  "For  the  admin- 
istration of  this  service  (this  almsgiving)  not 
only  supplieth  the  wants  of  the  saints,  but 
superabounds  (ntqioatvovoa)  through  many 
thanksgivings  to  God  ;  whilst,  by  their  ex- 


340  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

perience  of  this  ministration,  they  glorify 
God  for  your  subjection  to  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  and  for  your  liberal  distribution  unto 
them  and  to  all  men  ;  and  by  their  prayer 
for  you  as  they  long  after  you  (tmTcoAovvtwv 
vfiaq),  loving  you  clearly,  on  account  of  the 
exceeding  grace  of  God  in  you  :  thanks  be 
unto  God  for  his  unspeakable  gift."  How 
different  the  motives  for  this  almsgiving, 
how  different,  too,  the  benefits  enumerated, 
from  those  of  the  ordinary,  secular  or  utili- 
tarian benevolence  !  The  thought  of  hap- 
piness, or  of  any  worldly  comfort,  almost 
wholly  disappears.  It  is  lost  in  the  glory 
of  the  higher  ideas  that  come  welling  up 
from  this  ' '  super-abounding  "  fountain, — the 
thanksgiving,  the  glorifying,  the  prayer,  the 
tender  love.  We  see,  too,  the  train  of 
thought  that  led  Paul  at  the  close  to  break 
out  in  the  rapturous  exclamation — "  Thanks 
be  unto  God  for  his  unspeakable  gift," — the 
gift  of  Christ,  God's  merciful  alms  to  a  poor 
perishing  world.     From  this  gift  of  Christ 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  341 

comes  the  life  that  warms  them  all,  the  gen- 
erative power  that  makes  this  one  virtue  of 
almsgiving  the  mother  of  so  many  others. 
The  gift  of  Christ, — it  rescues  us  from  perdi- 
tion, it  saves  us  from  pain,  it  is  a  source  of 
the  purest  happiness  ;  but  more  than  all — 
and  this  was  the  ineffable  value  that  rose 
highest  in  the  Apostle's  mind — it  creates  the 
richest  virtue  in  the  human  soul,  and  thus 
abounds,  and  "  superabounds,  to  the  glory 
of  God." 

No  part  of  the  Scriptures  would  furnish 
better  examples  of  that  outward  naturalness 
and  truthfulness  on  which  we  have  so  much 
insisted  than  the  "  Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  and 
especially  those  parts  that  give  us,  with  so 
much  lifelikeness  of  coloring  and  detail,  the 
labors  of  Paul.  If  space  allowed  to  dwell 
upon  them,  we  might  refer  to  almost  every 
point  in  his  career.  How  real  is  every  pic- 
ture !  Paul  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  Paul 
the  zealous  Pharisee,  Paul  at  the  stoning 
of  Stephen,  Paul  on  his  way  to  Damascus, 


342  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

Paul  seeing  visions  and  a  light  from  heaven  ; 
whether  subjectively  or  objectively,  we  in- 
quire not  now,  but  when  was  a  vision  ever 
more  truthfully  narrated  ?  Or  turn  we  to 
his  new  life  :  Paul  kneeling  before  Ananias, 
Paul  praying,  receiving  baptism,  speaking 
11  straightway  with  boldness  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus," — Paul  with  the  brethren  at 
Jerusalem,  again  seeing  Christ  in  the  temple 
vision,  journeying  on  his  new  mission  to 
Antioch,  sent  forth  to  the  cities  of  Asia 
Minor,  reading  in  the  Synagogue  on  the 
Sabbath  day,  now  worshipped  as  a  messen- 
ger from  heaven,  then  stoned  and  left  for 
dead  by  the  wayside, — Paul  withstanding 
Peter  to  his  face,  contending  with  Barnabas, 
distrusting  Mark,  departing  with  Silas, — 
"  Paul  in  perils  by  land,  in  perils  by  water, 
in  stripes,  in  imprisonments,  in  tumults,  in 
fastings,  troubled  on  every  side,  yet  not 
distressed,  always  bearing  about  in  the  body 
the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus," — Paul  by  the 
sea-shore  at  Troas,  musing  on  the  shaping 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  343 

destiny  that  seemed,  in  spite  of  all  his  pur- 
poses, to  direct  his  mighty  mission  to  the 
opposite-lying  coast  of  Europe,— Paul  seeing 
by  night  the  man  of  Macedonia  standing  by 
him  and  saying,  "  cross  over  and  help  us," — 
Paul  at  Athens  disputing  with  the  philoso- 
phers, at  Ephesus  in  the  midst  of  the  raging 
mob,  at  Miletus  kneeling  on  the  beach  and 
praying  with  the  elders  of  the  Church,— Paul 
at  Jerusalem  rescued  by  the  Roman  captain, 
speaking  to  the  people  in  his  own  Hebrew 
tongue,  pleading  his  cause  before  Felix, — in 
all  these  circumstances  displaying  that  manly 
truthfulness  which  ever  won  for  him  the 
favor  of  the  stern  Roman  authorities, — Paul 
in  the  deep,  a  prisoner  in  chains,  yet  rising 
through  the  greatness  of  his  spiritual  strength 
to  the  actual  command  of  the  foundering 
vessel ; — plain  outward  facts  all  of  them  ; 
how  objectively  graphic  in  their  narration, 
and  yet  how  suggestive,  how  full  of  soul ! 
An  uninspired  writer,  especially  a  modern 
one,  would  have  inverted  the  pictures,  turned 


344  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

them  inside  out,  as  it  were.  He  would,  per- 
haps, have  filled  his  pages  with  Paul's  "  sub- 
jective," as  it  is  called.  He  would  have  given 
his  religious  experience.  He  would  have 
told  us  all  how  he  felt,  and  what  he  thought, 
as  he  stood  on  Mars  Hill,  or  what  great  con- 
ceptions filled  his  soul  as  he  drew  near  the 
mighty  city  of  the  Seven  Mountains.  And 
yet  what  lets  us  more  readily  and  clearly 
into  the  inward  character  and  state  of  the 
man,  than  the  simple  objective  style  of  the 
Scripture  narrative  ?  We  have  before  our 
eyes,  and  distinctly  conceived  in  our  thought, 
this  most  remarkable  person  in  every  stage 
and  phase  of  his  old  and  renewed  being  : 
Paul  the  youthful  Pharisee,  "haling  men  to 
prison,"  and  stoning  them  to  death,  yet  verily 
thinking  that  he  was  doing  God  service, — 
"Paul  the  aged,"  looking  to  his  departure, 
confessing  himself  the  chief  of  sinners,  yet 
maintaining  the  earnestness  and  sincerity 
with  which  he  had  run  the  Christian  race, 
and  fought  the  fight  of  faith, — Paul,  of  whom 


IN    THE    SCEIPTURES.  345 

even  after  his  conversion,  it  might  be 
thought  that  no  one  would  be  more  likely 
to  prove  a  fanatic,  or  a  rash  enthusiast,  yet, 
instead  of  this,  ever  the  man  of  loving  mod- 
eration, who  was  willing,  in  the  noblest 
sense,  to  be  all  things  to  all  men  if  so  be  that 
he  could  win  souls  to  Christ, — Paul  the  ar- 
dent, the  excitable,  the  vision-seeing,  and 
who,  it  might  be  thought,  would  have  de- 
lighted in  the  miraculous,  the  wonder-mak- 
ing, yet,  on  the  contrary,  ever  preferring  the 
moral  and  spiritual,  however  sober,  to  the 
marvellous,  however  tempting  to  the  relig- 
ious imagination  : — so  truthful  was  he,  so 
loving,  so  just  in  the  midst  of  excitements 
that  might  have  affected  the  strongest  un- 
supported reason.  He  could  speak  with 
tongues  more  than  they  all  ;  he  magnified 
the  miraculous  gifts  with  which  God  had 
endowed  the  Church,  even  where  he  turns 
from  them  and  says,  "  yet  show  I  unto  you 
a  more  excellent  way."  Then  follows  that 
picture  of  Charity  before  alluded  to,  that 
15* 


346  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

heavenly  limning,  by  which  alone,  if  men 
had  eyes  to  see,  and  hearts  to  feel,  might  be 
tested  the  inspiration  of  the  human  soul  that 
conceived  it,  and  the  divinity  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  which  it  is  contained. 

We  do  not  underrate  physical  miracles, 
when  we  say  they  are  less  wonderful  than 
such  a  character.  What  influence  on  earth, 
what  school  on  earth,  Oriental,  Occidental, 
Greek,  Roman,  Jewish,  could  have  "devel- 
oped "  the  Apostle  Paul  as  he  appears  in  this 
his  own  strange  transition  age  ?  We  might 
rest  the  evidence  of  Christianity,  as  it  has 
been  most  ably  and  convincingly  rested,  on 
the  utter  impossibility  of  explaining  this  mys- 
tery in  the  human  in  any  other  way  than  by 
the  supernatural  and  divine. 

The  Straussian  men  should  be  met  on  their 
own  ground.  Given  the  ideal  to  account  for 
it, — this  is  the  problem.  We  have  the  ideal 
Christ,  the  ideal  Paul,  the  ideal  Christian 
Church  with  its  superhuman  doctrines.  They 
are  before  us  in  history,  they  are  now  with  us 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  347 

in  books,  they  are  seen  and  felt  in  the  world. 
There  is  no  known  earthly  development  to 
which  they  can  be  assigned.  Why  then 
should  we  hesitate  to  admit  the  divine  and 
the  unearthly  as  manifested  in  some  corres- 
ponding actual?  The  former  without  the 
latter  is  only  the  greater  wonder.  It  has 
the  doubly  miraculous,  its  own  exceeding 
strangeness,  and  the  utter  inexplicability  of 
its  human  origin. 


CHAPTER     XIX. 


Application  of  the  Argument  —  The  Bible  a  World-Book — 
Summation  of  the  Argument  from  the  Natural  —  Such  an  Exhi- 
bition of  the  Human  could  not  have  been  without  the  Super- 
human —  The  Jewish  as  compared  with  the  Greek  and  Eoman 
History  —  The  Bible  Catholicism  in  its  Adaptation  to  individual 
States  of  individual  Souls  —  Moses  nearer  to  us,  notwithstand- 
ing his  Orientalism,  than  the  Greek  and  Roman  Legislators  — 
The  Bible  Hebrew  as  compared  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  — 
The  Remarkable  Intelligibility  of  the  Bible  Hebrew  in  the  Let- 
ter —  Surpassing,  in  this  respect,  the  other  Shemitic  tongues, 
though  aided  in  its  Interpretation  by  them  —  Two  Reasons  of 
this — The  Breath  of  the  Lord  inspiring  it  —  A  Second  Reason, 
the  intense  Humanity  of  its  Images. 

The  Scriptures  furnish  an  inexhaustible 
mine  of  illustration  for  the  purposes  of  our 
argument ;  but  the  rapid  sketches  that  have 
been  given  are  sufficient  to  satisfy  any 
thoughtful  mind,  that  in  the  book  itself,  in 
its  "peculiar  people"  so  remarkably  con- 
nected with  the  whole  destiny  of  the  race, 
in  its  history  so  strange  yet  so  truthful,  in 
its  doctrines  so  unearthly  yet  given  through 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  349 

language  so  intensely  human,  in  its  wonder- 
ful position  in  the  very  heart  of  human  cul- 
ture, in  its  sudden  power  when  newly 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  mind  and  con- 
science of  an  age,  and  in  the  lasting  tenacity 
of  its  influence  upon  the  world's  best  and 
highest  thinking,  there  is,  indeed,  a  mystery 
which  can  be  solved  by  no  explanation  short 
of  the  supernatural  and  the  divine.  Thus, 
then,  we  say  in  conclusion,  take  the  whole 
Bible,  leave  out  its  supernatural — that  is,  its 
supernatural  in  outward  act — fix  the  mind 
upon  its  earthly  history,  its  unique  consist- 
ency, its  ancient  fiovh)  or  Oracular  Messianic 
purpose  so  early  proclaimed  and  so  steadily 
maintained  throughout,  —  let  the  thought 
dwell  upon  its  inherent  truthfulness,  its 
strong  human  probabilities,  in  a  word,  its 
great  naturalness,,  and  we  have  before  us  that 
position  which  for  philosophic  wonder,  if  we 
may  use  the  term,  the  wonder  of  the  thought 
or  reason,  surpasses  any  sewse-confounding 
marvel  of  the  outward  supernatural  itself. 


350  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

For  the  supernatural  is  credible  ;  there  are 
times  conceivable  when  the  absence  of  it 
would  be  more  strange  than  its  presence  ; 
but  such  a  history,  though  so  natural  and 
credible  in  its  parts,  is  yet,  without  the 
supernatural  as  its  explanation,  incredible  as 
a  whole,  or  would  be  incredible  if  there  were 
not  the  strongest  evidence  of  its  outward 
actuality  ;  and  this  we  undeniably  have,  for 
here  are  the  books,  and  the  people  of  whom 
we  speak,  and  the  Church  that  has  been  built 
upon  them,  and  the  present  history,  and  the 
many  centuries  of  past  history  that  have  been 
shaped  and  made  what  they  are  mainly  by 
the  power  that  is  in  these  books,  or  by  other 
powers  which  find  their  explanation  nowhere 
else  than  in  these  revelations  of  humanity  to 
itself. 

Such  a  people  as  the  Israelites,  so  strange  in 
their  secluded  history,  yet  so  purely  human 
and  natural  in  their  national  life,  so  cut  off 
from  the  world's  general  polity,  yet  with  a  des- 
tiny, so  connected  with  the  highest  historical 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  351 

development  of  the  race,  a  destiny  announced 
in  the  earliest  prophecy,  and  which  the  whole 
course  of  time  has  been  fulfilling, (11) — such  a 
separate  people,  in  this  sense,  and  to  this 
end  called  "holy,"*  did  exist;  all  history 
has  been  affected  by  them  ;  they  exist  now 
as  a  distinct  people,  though  such  a  fact, 
strange  as  it  may  be,  is  really  the  inferior 
wonder  ;  they  yet  exist,  still  more  vividly 
and  emphatically,  in  the  mighty  power  of 
the  past ;  we  have  their  books,  their  litera- 
ture, their  poetry,  their  ethics,  their  theology, 
their  most  stirring  national  life  ;  it  lies  in 
the  bosom  of  all  that  is  best  known  of  the 
world's  culture  ;  it  would  almost  seem  from 
the  very  course  of  events,  ancient  and 
modern,  and  even  aside  from  the  "  sure  word 
of  prophecy,"  as  though  the  whole  human 
race  had  been  created  for  the  very  purpose 
of  bringing  out  the  great  truths  of  which 
this  people  were  made  the  early,  and  for  a 

*  Exodus  xxii,  31,  "  And  ye   shall  be  holy  men  unto 
me."     Viri  sancti  critis  mihi. 


352  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

long  time  the  only,  witnesses.  Now  we  may 
say  that,  excepting  the  outward  super- 
natural, if  we  choose  to  except  it,  the  gene- 
ral worldly  certainty  attending  the  annals  of 
this  strange  nation  is  equal  to  any  that  be- 
longs to  Greek  or  Roman  history  ;  in  in- 
trinsic truthfulness,  it  may  be  maintained, 
it  far  exceeds  them.  This,  then,  being  ad- 
mitted, as  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt  of 
any  reasonable  mind,  what  is  there  rationally 
incredible  in  the  thought  that  such  a  people 
ever  carrying  with  them  such  a  world- destiny, 
should  be  the  objects  of  an  extraordinary 
divine  care, — if  there  is  any  divine  care,  or  if 
such  an  idea  is  credible  at  all  in  reference  to 
any  earthly  object  ?  Why  so  opposed  to  any 
strangeness  in  nature,  if  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  the  higher  strangeness  in  the  histori- 
cal ?  In  other  words,  if  we  can  come  thus  far, 
if  there  has  been  such  historical  superintend- 
ence, general  or  special,  then  again,  what 
is  there  incredible  in  the  statement  that  the 
curtain  of  the  natural  has  been  sometimes 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  353 

drawn  aside,  and  God  revealed  "  holding  the 
winds,  that  they  blow  not,"  or  " sending 
them  forth  as  his  messengers,"  or  coming 
"in  the  flaming  fire,"  or  speaking  in  the 
"  still  small  voice,"  when  some  event,  known 
to  him  as  connected  with  the  world's  des- 
tiny, demanded  the  one  or  the  other  mani- 
festation ? 

In  the  views  that  have  been  presented, 
we  see  at  least  the  reason  of  the  wondrous 
Catholicism  of  the  Scriptures.  We  see  how 
it  is  that  they  so  adapt  themselves  to  the 
common  knowledge,  and  common  thinking, 
and  common  imagination,  of  all  men.  This 
is  felt  the  more  the  book  is  studied  and 
understood.  The  effect  indeed  may  be 
heightened  by  the  elucidating  labors  of  the 
scholiast  and  the  archaeologist ;  all  such 
clearing  of  the  letter  does,  for  the  spiritual 
mind,  add  to  the  spiritual  power  ;  but  with- 
out such  helps,  or  with  the  scantiest  supply 
of  them,  and  in  the  poorest  translation  ever 
made,   it  has  a  fountain  of  living  thought 


354  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

never  failing  in  its  rich  suggestiveness  for 
the  devout  unlearned,  and  never  exhausted 
by  any  amount  of  research  on  the  part  of 
the  profoundest  scholar. 

There  is  another  aspect  still  of  this  re- 
markable universality.  Not  only  is  the 
Bible  adapted  to  all  ages,  to  all  peoples,  to 
all  individuals  ;  it  also  addresses  itself  to  the 
most  special  circumstances  of  each  single 
soul.  Men  may  doubt  this  who  have  never 
made  the  Scriptures  their  study,  who,  per- 
haps, seldom  read  them  at  all ;  but  still  there 
is  no  fact  better  attested  in  all  the  range  of 
Baconian  or  inductive  science.  The  most 
learned  as  well  as  the  most  simple,  have 
borne  witness  to  it.  It  is  a  truth  established 
that  there  is  this  peculiar  life  in  the  world,  a 
life  manifesting  itself  in  immense  variety  of 
effect,  yet  equally  powerful  for  mental  con- 
ditions the  most  extreme  in  rank  and  knowl- 
edge. It  is  all  true,  the  picture  that  Burns 
has  drawn  of  the  holy  influence  of  the  Bible  by 
the  cotter's  humble  hearth  ;  it  is  all  true,  what 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  355 

we  often  hear,  and  our  eyes  have  witnessed,  of 
its  transforming  power  over  the  illiterate,  of 
the  elevation  of  thought  and  feeling  it  gives 
to  intellects  otherwise  obtuse,  and,  not  un- 
frequently,  to  the  rudest  savage  soul.  No 
other  book  does  this  ;  but  the  Bible,  wher- 
ever it  goes,  is  ever  followed  by  some  ex- 
amples of  this  strange  effect  ;  let  the  induc- 
tive philosopher  put  it  in  his  crucible,  or  his 
crucial  analysis,  and  explain  the  phenome- 
non as  he  best  can.  Surely  it  is  as  interest- 
ing, and  demands  as  much  attention,  as  some 
of  the  wonders  of  chemistry  or  geology.  But 
much  more  than  this  is  true.  Men  pro- 
foundly learned  in  the  Scriptures,  and  in  all 
that  wide  field  of  knowledge  that  relates  to 
them,  have  not  been  prevented  by  their 
critical  and  philological  investigations  from 
feeling  the  same  quickening  spiritual  energy 
of  the  Word.  Bible  scholars  like  Usher, 
classical  scholars  like  Erasmus,  philosophers 
like  Bacon,  divines  like  Edwards,  metaphy- 
sicians like  Leibnitz  and  Hamilton,  men  of 


356  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

loftiest  scientific  as  well  as  spiritual  insight 
like  Pascal,  men  of  highest  human  culture 
like  Wilberforce  and  Guizot,  have  sought 
knowledge,  not  merely  historical,  or  liter- 
ary, or  speculative,  but  soul-saving  knowl- 
edge, from  this  fountain  so  full  and  run- 
ning over  for  all.  As  the  child  sits  down 
to  learn  his  lesson  from  the  lips  of  a  beloved 
teacher,  so  have  they  betaken  themselves  to 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  with  the  deep 
conviction  that  in  their  human  was  to  be 
found  the  superhuman  and  the  divine.  They 
have  not  merely  prized  them  as  ancient 
writings  of  rare  antiquarian  interest,  or  as 
connected  with  some  of  the  most  interesting 
questions  of  history  and  ethnology,  or  as 
suggestive,  oftentimes,  of  what  is  deepest  in 
philosophy,  richest  in  poetry,  most  rare  and 
beautiful  in  literary  criticism  ;  all  of  these 
and  more  than  these  have  they  found  in  this 
treasure  of  things  new  and  old,  but  none  of 
them,  nor  all  of  them  conbined,  have  formed 
its  chief  attraction.  With  reverence  have 
they  bowed  their  heads  upon  the  sacred  vol- 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  357 

ume,  acknowledging  it  to  be  Holy  Scripture 
in  no  conventional  sense,  but  as  having 
truly  come  to  us  in  our  humanity  from  a 
superhuman  holy  source.  With  all  lowly 
submission,  as  to  a  divine  voice  speaking 
through  human  organs,  have  they  listened  for 
what  God  would  say  unto  their  individual 
souls,  as  adapted  to  their  own  individual 
experience.  No  want  of  knowledge  in  the 
infidel,  no  self-ignorance  in  the  pretentious 
rationalist,  can  make  false  the  fair  induction 
to  be  drawn  from  this  so  varied  inward  tes- 
timony. Their  superficial  acquaintance  with 
the  Scriptures  cannot  nullify  this  experi- 
ence of  the  most  cultivated  as  well  as  the 
most  unnurtured  minds,  or  make  void  the 
fact,  so  far  surpassing  in  wonder  any  mere 
physical  phenomenon,  that  there  has  been 
for  many  ages,  and  still  is,  in  our  world,  this 
mighty  and  most  catholic  spiritual  power. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  Scriptures  on  which 
we  have  been  dwelling  is  certainly  a  remark- 
able one,  let  the  sceptic  explain  it  as  he 
may.     Whether  taken  in  its  religious  or  its 


358  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

literary  aspect,  it  is  certainly  true  that  in 
this  character  of  universality  no  other  book 
can  be  compared  with  the  Bible.  Homer, 
perhaps,  comes  nearest  to  it  in  this  feature, 
but  at  what  an  immense  distance  !  Will 
any  one  refer  to  the  Greek  and  Roman 
ounders  for  whom,  too,  there  has  been 
claimed  a  sort  of  inspiration  ?  Let  us  look 
at  it.  Historically,  ethnologically,  political- 
ly, they  are  nearer  to  us,  much  nearer  to  us, 
than  the  Oriental  Lawgiver  ;  but  spiritually, 
humanly,  in  all  that  concerns  our  truest, 
our  most  central  manhood,  how  much  more 
akin  to  us  is  Moses  than  Lycurgus  or  Numa  ? 
How  much  better  we  understand — not  his 
writings  merely,  but  his  humanity  as  one 
with  our  humanity.  How  much  more  does 
he  enter,  not  only  into  the  religion,  but  into 
the  literature,  the  legislation,  in  a  word,  the 
whole  thinking  of  our  modern  society,  than 
any  influence  that  has  descended  from  Greek 
or  Roman  books.  This,  it  might  be  said, 
has  come  from  a   peculiar  course  of  events  ; 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  359 

but  that  would  be  making  history  a  matter 
of  chance.  It  is  not  a  mere  misplacing  ac- 
cident that  has  caused  it  ;  this  course  of 
events  has  been  itself  one  effect  of  this 
peculiar  power  ;  and  yet,  had  the  question 
been  asked,  two  centuries  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  what  literature,  two  thousand  years 
hence,  would  have  the  most  influence  in  the 
world,  what  mind  among  the  many  acute 
minds  of  that  period  would  have  turned  to 
the  secluded  hills  of  Judea  ?  In  like  man- 
ner are  their  languages,  etymologically,  syn- 
tactically, more  nearly  related  to  our  own  ; 
and  yet,  in  regard  to  this  interior  or  more 
catholic  manhood,  how  foreign,  how  bar- 
barous, may  we  say,  their  copious  Greek  and 
Latin,  as  compared  with  the  power  of  his 
own  scanty  yet  clear  and  lofty  Hebrew ! 
How  much  more  obscure,  too,  oftentimes,  as 
well  as  feeble  are  they,  notwithstanding  their 
greater  culture,  and  their  more  abundant 
means  of  rhetorical  expression. 

There  is   a   thought  here  well  worth  our 


360  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

attention,  in  its  bearing  on  what  we  have 
called  the  Divine  human  in  the  Scriptures. 
It  is  the  remarkable  intelligibility  of  the 
Bible  Hebrew.  The  reference,  in  this  appar- 
ent paradox,  is  not  to  the  ineffable  doctrine. 
Here,  indeed,  is  difficulty  ;  here  is  a  demand 
for  study  surpassing  that  required  for  any 
science,  any  philosophy,  of  earth.  We  mean 
the  intelligibility  of  the  letter  all  the  way 
down  to  where  it  is  lost  in  the  spiritual,  the 
pure  humanness  of  the  media  through  which 
the  Divine  ideas  are  approximated  to  us, 
the  verbal  lucidity,  clearness  of  style,  clean- 
ness of  figure,  transparency,  we  might  call 
it,  of  radical  and  etymological  imagery. 
With  the  exception  of  a  very  few  Phoenician 
fragments,  the  Old  Testament  is  the  only 
writing  extant  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  ;  and 
yet,  even  without  the  cognate  tongues  that 
have  only  of  late  been  extensively  called 
in  aid,  how  very  little  is  there  that  CGuld 
be  truly  pronounced  unintelligible,  in  that 
sense   of  intelligibility  that  has  been  men- 


FN     THE    SCRIPTURES.  361 

tioned  !  But  let  us  imagine,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  Homer,  even  the  graphic,  picture- 
making  Homer,  had  been  our  only  surviv- 
ing relic  of  the  Greek, — or  the  exact,  word- 
weighing  Lucretius  our  only  remains  of  the 
Latin,  what  immense  lacunae,  or  series  of 
equally  worthless  conjectures,  must  have 
existed  in  the  best  translations  ;  how  much 
would  be  beyond  the  recovering  power  of 
all  the  scholiasts,  and  that,  too,  not  merely 
in  matters  of  local  and  partial  allusion,  but 
in  the  expression  of  the  most  ordinary  and 
general  thought. 

It  is  not,  however,  merely  in  the  Hebrew 
as  a  language  that  we  find  the  grounds  of 
this  comparison.  There  is,  in  truth,  in  this 
ancient  tongue,  a  sharp  outline  significance, 
a  remarkable  defining  power,  as  we  may 
call  it  ;  yet,  still  mere  human  compositions, 
had  they  been  written  in  it  and  been  pre» 
served  to  us,  would  doubtless  have  present- 
ed, in  many  respects,  the  same  feebleness 
and  common-place  obscurities —obscure  be- 
16 


362  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

cause  they  are  common-place — that  meet 
us  in  other  literature.  The  daughter  dia- 
lect of  the  Rabbinical,  though  vastly  more 
copious,  has  become  trifling,  and,  of  con- 
sequence, unmeaning,  in  the  Talmud ; 
shelves  are  filled  with  the  obscure  drivel 
that  has  been  written  in  the  near  cognate 
Syriac  ;  even  the  nobler  Arabic  has  lost 
greatly  in  respect  to  its  ancient  clearness, 
and  abounds  in  ambiguities  and  obscure  con- 
ceits, whose  mastery  will  not  pay  one  often 
for  the  pains  taken  in  their  elucidation. 
Everywhere  else  has  this  grand  Shemitic 
stock  degenerated.  Not  in  the  language, 
therefore,  as  such  (we  mean  in  the  language 
radically  as  distinguished  from  other  tongues 
near  or  remote)  must  we  seek  the  sole  ex- 
planation of  this  original  power,  as  we  find 
it  in  the  Bible.  There  is  one  thought  alone 
that  solves  the  mystery,  that  gives  the  full 
reason  of  that  remarkable  intelligibility 
which  has  been  noticed  by  the  profoundest 
scholars.     It  is  the  Divine  breath  in  these  old 


IX    THE     SCRIPTURES.  368 

Scriptures  that  has  filled  them  so  full  of  life  ; 
it  is  the  Divine  voice  of  authority,  sounding 
in  every  page,  that  has  given  them  this 
wonderful  and  otherwise  inexplicable  clear- 
ness. It  is  because  it  is  "  the  Word  of  God, 
sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword,  reach- 
ing even  to  the  dividing  of  soul  and  sense, 
the  joints  and  the  marrow,  a  critic  both  of 
the  thinkings  and  the  ideas  of  the  heart." 
11  It  is  the  lamp  of  the  Lord,  which  like  the 
breath  of  man"  (in  the  physical  organ- 
ization), "  searches  all  the  inward  cham- 
bers of"  the  soul.* 

Add  to  this  what  has  been  so  much 
insisted  on,  the  intense  humanity  of  the 
Old  Scriptures,  and  we  have  another  reason 
why  this  very  ancient  and  most  peculiarly 
Oriental  tongue  so  vividly  pours  out  its 
thought,  and  is  so  translatable,  into  the 
most  remotely  varying  languages  of  the 
modern  Western  world. 

*  Prov.  xx,  27. 


CHAPTER     XX. 


The  Power  of  the  Bible  —  The  Effect  of  the  Scriptures  not 
merely  from  our  Familiarity  with  them  —  The  Power  of  the 
Written  Word  as  shown  at  the  Reformation  —  Similar  to  the 
effect  on  the  Roman  World,  and  in  the  Patristic  Period  —  The 
"  Finding  of  the  Book  of  the  Law  "  as  when  found  by  Hilkiah 
the  Priest  —  So  the  Bible  went  forth  from  the  Cell  of  the  Augus- 
tine Monk  —  The  Power  is  in  the  Book  itself — The  Hebrew 
Prophets  —  How  they  talk  to  our  Age — The  Imprecatory 
Psalms  —  Still  needed  in  the  Church's  Liturgy  —  The  Book  of 
the  Race  —  The  Old  Family  Bible  —  Contains  our  Natural  and 
Spiritual  Genealogy  —  Contains  the  Ideas  of  the  race  that  are 
most  Universal  —  Such  as  the  Fall,  Redemption,  Incarnation, 
the  Human  Brotherhood  —  Men  who  compare  the  Scriptures 
with  other  Books  called  "  Sacred"  —  Difficulties  in  the  Bible  — 
The  Fight  of  Faith  —  Two  Kinds  of  Scepticism  —  Accommoda- 
tions —  The  Question  again  asked :  Are  the  Modern  Rational- 
ists making  Progress  in  Holiness  ?  —  Worthlessness  of  their 
Criticism. 


It  might  be  said  that  this  effect  of  the 
Hebrew  writings  was  owing  to  the  long 
familiarity  of  reverent  religious  associations. 
But  such  an  account  of  the  matter  will  not 
stand  the  test  either  of  reason  or  of  facts. 
It  is    putting  the  effect  for  the  cause.     It 


THE    DIVINE    HUMAN.  365 

fails  to  explain  the  first  power  and  the  long 
tenacity.  The  Scriptures  have  had  the  same 
influence,  and  manifested  it  much  more 
strikingly,  when  first  presented  to  an  age  or 
people, — and  that,  too,  not  its  first  recipients, 
but  a  new  age  or  people  far  removed  and 
far  different,  both  in  history  and  culture. 
We  have  already  alluded  to  their  power  in 
the  Patristic  period,  when  they  burst  upon 
the  new-born  mind  of  the  Church,  and 
newly  encountered  the  utterly  alien  feeling 
of  the  Roman  world.  Thus  was  it  also  in 
the  Reformation  age,  after  the  whole  Bible 
had  for  a  second  time  been  so  long  buried 
from  the  common  mind.  As  when  Hilkiah 
the  priest  discovered  in  the  temple  a  copy  of 
the  law  that  the  Lord  had  given  unto  Moses, 
so  came  forth  the  Scriptures  from  the  cell  of 
the  Augustine  monk.  Men  everywhere, 
great  men  and  mean  men,  learned  men  and 
ignorant  men,  "wept  and  humbled  them- 
selves at  the  reading  of  the  words  of  the  book 
that  was  found."     What  a  sudden  activity 


%6Q  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

did  it  give,  not  only  to  the  religious,  but  to 
all  the  higher  departments  of  thinking. 
How  it  quickened  the  age !  How  it  made 
the  theological  and  the  spiritual  predominant 
everywhere,  in  the  political,  social,  and  even 
military  life !  How  paradoxically,  we  may 
say,  yet  how  truly,  did  this  strangely  human 
book,  with  its  abounding  anthropopathisms, 
engage  the  general  mind  in  the  highest 
heights  of  abstract  speculation, — as  though 
this  very  anthropopathism,  more  than  any 
philosophical  language,  contained  those  hid- 
den germs  that  must  grow  up  evermore  into 
the  infinity  of  thought. 

The  power,  we  say,  is  in  the  book  itself, 
and  not  merely  in  its  historical  associations, 
or  the  reverence  of  early  belief,  or  its  long 
familiar  sacredness.  To  feel  it  fully,  it  is 
even  necessary,  sometimes,  to  get  rid  of  this 
familiarity,  by  reading  the  Scriptures  from 
some  new  standpoint.  We  must  study  the 
books  of  Moses  in  connection  with  the  near- 
est contemporary  writings,  thus  transplanting 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  367 

ourselves  into  the  old  life  of  each  ;  arid  then 
it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  in  the  Jewish 
Legislator  a  world-life  that  cannot,  by  any 
alchemy  of  association,  or  revivification,  be 
again  recovered  from  any  institutes  of  like 
antiquity. 

We  need  not  dwell  on  this  universality  as 
found  in  the  Psalms  of  David.  Devout 
feeling  and  the  most  learned  critical  research 
alike  concur  in  the  thought  that  the  key  to 
their  best  interpretation  is  found  in  that  view 
which  regards  them  as  the  divine  songs  of  all 
truly  religious  souls,  the  standing  temple 
service  of  all  ages,  so  adapted  to  the  expres- 
sion of  temporal  and  spiritual  sorrows,  tem- 
poral and  spiritual  joys,  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual triumphs,  temporal  and  spiritual  salva- 
tion, that  each  may  be  regarded  as  the  pri- 
mary or  secondary  significance,  according  to 
the  state  of  soul  in  which  the  recipient  reads 
or  chants  the  wondrously  adapted  words. 
There  is  nowhere  in  the  physical  world  any 
such  evidence  of  adaptedness  or  design  as 


368  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

this.  The  historical  world  certainly  furnishes 
nothing  like  it.  Let  it  be  called  accommo- 
dation, if  any  prefer  the  word  ;  we  could  not 
thus  accommodate  one  of  the  lyric  hymns  of 
Greece,  or  a  song  of  the  Rig  Veda.  In  these, 
it  is  true,  there  are  strains  of  conflict,  of  de- 
liverance, of  triumph, — there  is,  moreover, 
the  representation  of  the  superhuman  and 
the  supernatural, — but  then  there  is  wholly 
lacking  that  idea  which  overlooks  all  differ- 
ences of  outward  human  condition,  or  of  hu- 
man wants,  in  the  nearness  of  the  divine  per- 
sonal presence, — the  idea  of  help  from  the 
one  God,  all  mighty,  all  holy,  dwelling  in  the 
highest  heavens,  yet  ever  nigh  the  soul  that 
calleth  on  him. 

It  is  this  idea,  made  alive  by  faith,  that 
characterizes  the  Bible  prayer,  and  the  Bible 
salvation,  whether  it  be  of  the  temporal  or 
spiritual  kind.  To  the  Greek,  religion  was 
a  matter  of  taste,  of  beauty,  of  artistic  fancy  ; 
to  the  Hindoo,  it  was  a  mystic  contemplation 
for  the  higher,  a  grotesque  monstrosity,  or  a 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  369 

horrid  diversion,  for  the  vulgar  mind.  To 
the  Christian,  as  to  the  Jew,  it  is  a  want  of 
the  soul,  a  want  of  God,  an  urgent  need  of 
divine  help.  There  may  be,  in  its  Jewish 
exhibition,  more  reference  to  the  temporal, 
as  we  style  it,  or  the  immediate  life,  as  in  the 
Christian,  a  higher  looking  to  the  spiritual 
deliverance,  yet  in  each  is  it  the  same  God, 
the  same  faith,  and  thus,  as  far  as  its  author 
and  object  are  concerned,  essentially  the 
same  salvation.  Abraham  trusted  God  in 
temporal  promises,  and  "  it  was  counted  to 
him  for  righteousness  ;"  for  it  was  a  whole 
trust,  a  trust  for  all  he  knew  of  his  relations 
to  the  Invisible,  for  all  he  hoped  in  respect 
to  his  total  being,  whether  this  present 
earthly  life  with  a  blank  beyond,  or  some 
unknown  as  yet  unrevealed  existence  where 
the  weary,  rest-seeking  pilgrim  though  dead 
might  yet,  in  some  way,  "  live  unto  God." 
It  was  a  whole  trust,  and,  therefore,  though 
having  its  conceptual  limit  on  earth,  it  was 
really  a  trust  for  eternity.  "  These  all  died 
16* 


370  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises, 
but  seeing  them  afar,  and  confessing  that 
they  were  strangers  and  travellers  upon  the 
earth."  Religion  was  not  their  sesthetic 
fancy,  their  philosophy,  their  mythic  wonder, 
or  even  their  mystic  quietism,  but  their  souls' 
urgent  want ;  they  desired  God,  as  a  present 
help  in  time  of  trouble  ;  "  they  endured  as 
seeing  Him  who  is  invisible." 

The  same  idea  of  the  Scripture  adapted- 
ness  is  suggested  by  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
How  plain  they  talk  to  us,  how  easily  we 
understand  their  essential  message,  when 
taken  out  of  its  partial  aspects  of  time  and 
place !  We  know  well  the  chronological 
periods  of  their  predictions  ;  we  are  not  at 
all  ignorant  of  their  primary  applications, 
nor  of  the  peculiar,  the  very  peculiar,  histori- 
cal states  that  furnish  the  ground  of  their 
impassioned  admonitions  ;  most  special  in- 
deed, most  exclusive  are  they  in  their  na- 
tional and  ethical  aspects  ;  and  yet  we  can- 
not help  feeling  that  these  ancient  Seers  are 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  371 

talking  to  us,  talking  to  all  men,  to  all  ages. 
Their  words  are  just  the  words,  just  the 
figures,  which  are  needed  now,  and  found  to 
be  most  appropriate  now,  in  rebuking  every 
form  of  wrong,  of  oppression,  of  public  or 
private  wickedness.  If  any  part  of  the 
Bible  belongs  to  a  past  age,  it  would  seem 
to  be  the  imprecatory  prayers  of  the  Psalms. 
At  least,  it  might  be  said  a  later  revelation 
has  abrogated  their  use.  And  yet  there  are 
times  now,  and  men  now,  and  transactions 
now  taking  place  upon  the  earth,  and  wrongs 
and  enormities  still  heard  of,  in  reference  to 
which  these  prayers  would  seem  to  be  still 
wanted  as  the  most  appropriate  language. 
All  other  speech  fails  to  express  the  right- 
eous indignation  so  different  from  the  per- 
sonal revenge.  It  demands  its  own  appro- 
priate language,  and  the  ethical  want  finds 
its  true  relief  in  these  portions  of  the  Church's 
immutable  liturgy  :  "Oh!  crush  the  oppres- 
sor, Lord  ;  arise,  my  God,  lift  up  thine 
hand,    forget   not    the    humble:"     "Break 


372  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

thou  the  arm  of  the  wicked  and  evil  man  ; 
for  thou  hast  smitten  our  enemies  upon  the 
cheek,  thou  hast  broken  the  teeth  of  the 
ungodly  :"  "  Let  them  fall  by  their  own  coun- 
sels, cast  them  out  in  the  multitude  of  their 
transgressions,  for  they  have  rebelled  against 
thee  :"  "But  let  those  that  put  their  trust 
in  thee  rejoice  ;  let  them  say,  continually, 
The  Lord  be  magnified,  even  all  such  as  love 
thy  salvation." 

Is  it  necessary  to  fortify  our  positions  by 
referring  to  the  discourses  of  Christ  ?  When 
shall  this  voice  become  obsolete,  or  cease  to 
be  recognized  as  the  voice  of  a  world-mes- 
senger ?  "  No  man  ever  spake  like  this 
man," — ever  spake  thus  to  all  men,  or  is  so 
understood  by  all  men.  Who  thinks  of 
orientalisms,  or  is  critically  troubled  about 
orientalisms,  when  deeply  intent  on  words 
so  human  and  yet  so  superhuman,  so  adapt- 
ed to  the  East,  yet  so  intelligible  in  the 
West,  so  marked  by  the  style  of  the  age  in 
which  they  are  uttered,  and  yet  so  in  unison 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  373 

with  the  speech  and  thinking  of  all  ages  ! 
Well  may  the  Scriptures  be  called  "The 
Book."  It  is  the  Book  of  the  race.  It  is 
the  old  family  Bible,  long  entrusted  to  the 
keeping  of  the  first  born,  but  where  all  may 
come  and  find  their  natal  record.  Here  is 
the  historical  genealogy  of  all  nations.  Com- 
pare, in  this  respect,  the  simple,  truthful, 
modest  ethnology  of  Genesis  with  other  ori- 
ental writings,  and  with  those  monstrous  leg- 
ends of  theirs  that  are  so  out  of  all  propor- 
tion with  themselves,  and  all  other  history. 
Here,  too,  is  the  spiritual  genealogy  of  hu- 
man souls, — the  generation  and  the  re- 
generation, the  man  of  the  earth  and  the 
"  man  from  heaven,"  the  humanity,  or  the 
life  in  Adam,  the  Christianity,  or  the  life  in 
Christ.  Here  is  "  the  image  of  the  earthly," 
and  here  is  "the  image  of  the  Heavenly." 
Here,  moreover,  is  that  which  belongs  to  all 
men  as  men,  the  ideas  that  above  all  others 
are  the  property  of  the  race.  Here  is  the 
fall,    the    redemption,    the    brotherhood    in 


374  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

ruin  as  the  ground  of  all  true  human  sym- 
pathy,  the  brotherhood  in  grace  as  the 
ground  of  all  true  human  hope,  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  supernatural  in  both  as  the 
true  foundation  of  all  genuine  philanthropy. 
And  yet  there  are  men, — men,  too,  claim- 
ing to  be  intelligent  and  philosophical, — who 
will  deliberately  put  these  wondrous  writings 
on  a  par  with  Chinese  and  Hindoo  oracles. 
They  have  never  studied  them,  to  be  sure, 
— they  know  as  little  of  the  Scriptures  as 
they  do  of  the  Yedas  and  Shasters  of  which 
they  talk  so  flippantly, — and  yet  they  not 
only  name  them  together  as  belonging  to 
one  general  class  of  "Sacred  Books,"  but 
seem  even  to  take  a  strange  delight  in  giv- 
ing the  Bible  a  secondary  place  as  compared 
with  these  "venerable  authorities.'7  They 
do  this,  too,  in  the  face  of  the  clearest  proof, 
if  they  will  but  study  it,  that  what  is  most 
"venerable77  and  most  remarkable  in  these 
compositions  is  but  the  obscured  image  of 
one  ancient  revelation,  a  deeply-fouled  copy 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  375 

from  that  one  antique   original  now  in  our 
possession. 

What  must  we  think  of  the  heads  or 
hearts  of  men,  who  can  deal  thus  with  things 
most  sacred  ?  What  respect  can  be  enter- 
tained either  for  their  morality  or  their  in- 
telligence? There  are  doubtless  great  and 
real  difficulties  in  the  Scriptures,  as,  to  a 
thinking  man,  there  must  be  great  and  real 
difficulties  everywhere  else,  both  in  the 
world  without  and  in  the  world  within.  Ever 
more,  as  such  a  one  thinks  on,  existence 
seems  more  and  more  strange,  until  he 
finds  that  he  must  think  himself  into  total 
darkness,  unless  there  be,  in  some  form,  an 
objective  truth,  an  objective  oracle,  in  the 
world.  The  thought,  the  God-given  thought, 
we  believe,  that  there  must  be  such  an 
oracle,  where  the  Infinite  communes  with 
the  finite  in  the  finite  language, — this  holds 
him  up.  This  leads  him  to  the  Scriptures, 
and  yet,  even  when  he  feels,  in  the  deepest 
convictions  of  his  experience,  that  there  is 


376  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

truly  a  divine  voice  speaking  to  him  therein, 
still  are  there  difficulties,  great  and  real  diffi- 
culties. He  must  ''fight  the  fight  of  faith." 
These  ancient  books  are  strange,  even  as 
nature  is  strange,  and  the  world  within  him, 
even  his  own  soul,  is  strange,  exceedingly 
strange  ;  and  this  he  discovers  the  more  and 
more  he  knows  of  its  psychological,  and 
especially  its  moral  depths.  These  ancient 
books  are  very  different  from  what  he  would 
at  first  have  fancied  a  revelation  ought  to  be  ; 
and  so,  if  he  keeps  on  thinking,  will  he  find 
out  mysteries,  not  merely  curious  scientific 
facts  or  laws,  but  awful,  fathomless  myste- 
ries in  nature,  such  as  he  never  would  have 
thought  could  be  contained  in  her,  or  have 
been  revealed  by  her.  There  is  this  differ- 
ence, however,  that  the  farther  he  goes  in 
the  physical,  rejecting  every  other  aid,  the 
more  he  gets  involved  in  darkness  as  to  the 
meaning  of  it  all  ;  whereas,  to  the  Bible 
student,  there  does  at  last  arise  a  light 
"  with  healing  in  its  wings,"  which  he  feels 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  377 

to  be  true  light  by  its  self-evidencing  power, 
and  by  its  shedding  light  on  other  things. 
By  the  aid  of  this  he  sees,  more  and  more, 
that  in  the  construction  and  plan  of  this 
book,  there  is  indeed  a  superhuman  wisdom, 
— that  in  its  most  human  utterances  there 
is  "  a  thought  which  is  above  our  thoughts, 
and  a  way  that  is  above  our  ways."  Still 
are  there  difficulties  in  the  Scriptures.  For 
the  trial  of  our  faith,  or  because  in  no  other 
way  could  the  heavenly  light  be  reflected 
upon  our  souls,  God  has  suffered  shadows  to 
rest  upon  the  mirror.  To  some  spiritual 
states  these  may  be  so  magnified  in  their 
shapes,  and  so  intensified  in  their  shading, 
as  to  render  faith  a  difficult  exercise  of  soul, 
or  only  to  be  sustained  by  a  constant  gazing 
upon  those  brilliant  heights  of  truth  that 
everywhere  stand  out  of  the  surrounding 
mist.  The  unbelief  that  arises  in  such  cir- 
cumstances is  not  infidelity.  It  is  an  un- 
happy condition  of  the  spirit  demanding,  in- 
stead  of  intolerance,    our  earnest    prayers, 


378  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

and  our  deepest  sympathy.  There  are  such 
sceptics  entitled  to  our  respect  and  our  love. 
They  do  not  choose  unbelief  per  se ;  they 
have  enough  of  the  light  to  make  them  love 
it,  and  long  for  more  of  it,  notwithstanding 
the  disquiet  that  is  suffered  to  visit  their 
souls. 

But  no  such  plea  can  be  made  for  those 
who  are  evidently  fond  of  these  odious  par- 
allels, not  more  profane  religiously  than  they 
are  revolting  to  all  pure  and  elevated  thought. 
It  is  hard  to  be  friends  with  men  who  can, 
without  compunction,  put  Jesus  and  Confu- 
cius together,  to  say  nothing  of  Jesus  and 
Shakspeare  ;  it  is  hard  to  feel  respect  for 
minds  that  can  see  no  difference  between 
the  Christian  Scriptures  and  the  Hindoo 
books  ;  it  is  no't  easy  to  entertain  a  senti- 
ment of  tolerance  for  hearts  that  will  place 
the  representations  of  ineffable  holiness,  and 
righteous  moral  government,  and  fearful,  yet 
loving  personality,  such  as  we  find  every- 
where in  the  one,  on  the  same  level  with  the 
pantheistic  common-places,  the  vulgar  gnosis, 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  379 

the  foul  nature-worship,  and  impure  sym- 
bolism of  the  other.  Is  this  done  knowingly  ? 
What  must  be  thought  of  their  appreciation 
of  the  pure  and  the  sublime  ?  Is  it  clone  as 
is  most  probable,  in  utter  personal  ignorance 
of  these  books,  and  of  the  grossness  of  their 
spiritually  disguised  sensualism  ?  What  must 
be  thought  of  the  anti-christian  hatred  that 
could  alone  have  prompted  a  parallel  as 
false  as  it  is  revolting,  as  absurd  as  it  is 
unholy ! 

There  is,  however,  another  attitude,  we 
make  bold  to  say  it,  that  is  more  irrational, 
if  not  more  irreverent,  than  that  of  either 
scoffing  or  scowling  unbelief.  It  is  that  of 
the  men  who  profess  to  regard  the  Scriptures 
as  in  some  sense  inspired,  in  some  sense  a 
revelation,  and  yet  with  an  express  or  tacit 
reserve  that  most  of  these  "  sacred  writings,'' 
Sacrce  Script  urce,  as  they  conventionally  style 
them,  are  already  obsolete,  and  the  remain- 
der fast  becoming  obsolete  in  the  advancing 
light  of  the  world.  There  are  others  who 
profess   a  more   cordial    reception,  perhaps, 


380  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN 

yet  would  they  maintain  that  this  respect  is 
clue  to  the  thoughts,  the  "  great  truths"  as 
they  deferentially  say,  whilst  the  style,  the 
words,  the  images,  are  "  accommodations" 
merely,  and,  therefore,  to  be  dispensed  with 
by  that  higher  thinking,  that  can  think  of 
God  as  well,  if  not  better,  without  them. 
Accommodations  truly  !  Grant  the  unmean- 
ing and  evasive  word  ;  but  still  accommoda- 
tions for  us  as  well  as  for  past  ages  ;  accom- 
modations for  us  as  well  as  for  the  Platonists, 
the  Aristotelians,  and  the  Academics  of  the 
first  century.  Accommodations  for  us  !  And 
why  not  then  shall  we  be  accommodated  by 
them  ?  Why  assume  the  irreverent  attitude 
of  ignoring  their  benefit  as  though  we  had 
obtained  some  lofty  position,  or — as  it  has 
been  shown  before,  that  this  claim  of  prog- 
ress must  mean,  if  it  mean  anything  to  the 
purpose  —  some  superlatively  holy  height, 
some  earth-removing,  heaven-nearing  height, 
that  enables  us  to  look  down  upon  these 
humble  stepping-stones  for  the  feet  of  the 
lower  and    more   worldly-minded    traveller. 


IN    THE    SCRIPT  U  R  K  3.  381 

They  were  well  enough  in  their  day  ;  they 
are  well  enough  for  others  :  but  we  see 
through  them  ;  we  have  become  so  spiritually- 
minded,  so  unworldly,  that  we  see  without 
them  ;  they  are  hindrances  now  rather  than 
helps  to  the  advanced  philosophic  intuition  ; 
the  great  problems  of  life  and  destiny  are 
all  solved  ;  we  have  the  modern  literature, 
the  modern  science,  the  modern  public 
opinion  ;  through  their  unearthly  spirit- 
uality we  are  brought  in  near  communion 
with  the  Divine  ideas,  and  have  no  longer 
need  of  the  anthropopathic  mirror.  Is  this 
claim  of  superior  holiness  all  false  ?  is  it 
so  absurdly  false,  that  the  very  statement, 
when  distinctly  made,  must  move  wonder 
in  those  for  whom  it  is  offered  ? — then  is 
the  age  not  yet  released  from  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures,  the  very  words  and  figures 
of  the  Scriptures.  Then,  instead  of  looking 
over  these  "  accommodations,"  or  looking 
under  them,  or  pretending  to  see  through 
them,  must  it  be  still  our  wisdom  to  sit  down 
to  the  volume  of  revelation,  and  brine:  our 


382  THE    DITINE    HUMAN 

heads  and  hearts  in  closest  communion  with 
this  Divine  language,  until  its  hidden  life- 
giving  power  shall  flow  over  into  our  dead, 
dark,  earthly  souls. 

Hence  the  plain  position  so  essential  to 
all  earnest  Biblical  study,  and  which  we 
have  kept  in  view  throughout  this  book. 
It  is,  that  the  very  language  of  Scripture  is 
specially,  and  most  efficiently,  designed  for 
our  moral  and  spiritual  instruction.  If  it  is 
^nvevOToq,  truly  heaven-breathed,  "  then  is 
it  all  profitable  for  teaching,  for  conviction, 
for  correction,  for  education  in  righteous- 
ness.'7 "  Thy  word,  0  Lord,  is  very  pure, 
therefore  thy  servant  loveth  it."  "  Open 
thou  mine  eyes  that  I  ma}'  behold  wondrous 
things  out  of  thy  law."  "The  entrance  of 
thy  word  giveth  light,  it  giveth  understand- 
ing." "  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you, 
they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."  The  soul 
that  feels  this,  and  acknowledges  this,  has 
the  ground  of  a  true  exegesis.  Even  the 
Neologists  are  very  fond  of  calling  the  Bible 
Sacrae  Scripture.     One,  the  most  commonly 


IN    THE    SCRIPTURES.  383 

read  of  these  commentators,  is  interpreting 
a  Messianic  psalm  just  as  he  would  a  Greek 
heroic  song.  In  reproof  of  any  contrary 
mode  he  very  learnedly  says — Quod  antem  in 
aliorum  Scriptorum  interpretatione  omnes 
repudiarent,  idem  cur  in  sacri  codicis  ex- 
plicatione  admittatur,  nullae  idonea  cogitari 
potest  ratio — ll  No  reason  can  be  conceived 
why  a  mode  which  all  reject  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  other  writings  should  be  admitted 
in  the  explanation  of  the  sacred  text."  But 
what  does  he  mean  by  his  words  sacri 
codicis  ?  If  it  be  indeed  sacra  Scriptura, 
sacred  or  Holy  Scripture,  then  the  very  fact  of 
its  being  such  must  make  an  immense  differ- 
ence between  it  and  any  Greek  or  Ptoman 
codex.  To  believe  in  his  heart  that  it  truly 
is  Sacred  Scripture,  and  that,  therefore,  every 
word  of  it  is  pure,  every  word  of  it  holy 
(so  far  as  we  can  hold  it  to  be  the  genuine 
text  or  word  of  God),  is  the  first  great 
requisite  of  an  interpreter.  Without  this 
idea,  though  the  writing  may  be  valuable 
and  interesting   in   other  respects,   yet  the 


384  T  HE     L>  1  V I N  E    H  U  M  A  N 

laborious  comment,  which  even  the  rational- 
ists bestow  upon  it  becomes  a  mockery  and 
an  absurdity.  It  is  true,  one  cannot  be  a 
good  interpreter,  or  the  best  interpreter, 
without  linguistic  and  archaeological  knowl- 
edge. On  the  other  hand,  however,  and 
with  still  greater  boldness,  may  it  be  said  of 
all  Biblical  interpretation  that  has  not  the 
unction  of  a  hearty  faith,  that  though  it  may 
be  a  blind  aid  to  something  higher  than 
itself,  yet  in  itself,  and  for  itself,  it  is  as 
worthless  as  "  the  sounding  brass  or  the 
tinkling  symbal."  It  is  as  dry,  as  light,  as 
"  the  chaff  of  the  summer  threshing-floor." 
The  wind  shall  drive  it  away.  The  onward 
march  of  the  human  mind  shall  consign  it  to 
oblivion.  It  shall  have  no  lasting  place,  as 
a  part  either  of  secular  or  of  sacred  litera- 
ture. The  infidel  and  the  believer  shall 
alike  scorn  it.  Neither  in  the  world  nor  in 
the  Church  shall  it  ever  have  that  post  of 
honor  which  belongs  to  what  is  called  genius 
in  the  one,  or  is  prized  as  productive  of 
holiness  or  spirituality  in  the  other. 


NOTES 


NOTE  1.— Page  65. 

Exodus,  33  :  20. — "And  he  said,  Thou  canst  not 
see   my  face,  for  no  man  can  behold  me  and  lire. 
And  the  Lord  said,  There  is  a  place  by  one,  and  thou 
shalt  stand  upon  the  rock,  and  it  shall  come  to  pass, 
when  my  glory  passeth  by,  that  I  will  put  thee  in  the 
cleft  of  the  rock,  and  I  will  cover  thee  with  my  hand 
and  thou  shalt  see  my  back  parts,  (^na  na)  but  my 
face  cannot  be  seen?     The  divine  ahorim  /  what  are 
they  but  the  aspect  or  side  of  deity  that  is  turned  to 
us,  the  rear  shading  of  that  ineffable  mirror  by  which 
the  divine  glory  is  reflected  to  human  eyes.     They 
are  the  finities  of  the  infinite,  as  the  HebreAV  word 
would  seem  to  denote, — the  side  that  is  turned  to  hu- 
man thought,  and  yet  as  real  as  that  other  which  can 
never  be  seen  by  the  finite  eye  or  conceived  by  the 
finite  understanding.      The  divine  powers  as  seen  in 
nature  are  also  called  rrxp  (Job.  26  :  14),  or  "  ends 


38G  NOTES. 

of  his  ways,"  but  it  would  seem  to  be  his  moral  at- 
tributes that  are  here  intended,  although  there  was 
doubtless  in  the  vision  an  outward  glory.  God  pass- 
es by  us  in  the  scriptures  as  he  passed  by  Moses  "  in 
the  cleft  of  the  rock,"  but  it  is  his  "goodness,"  his 
justice,  his  mercy,  he  proclaims,  rather  than  that 
physical  working  which  the  pious  naturalist  might 
regard  as  the  truer  interpretation  of  the  passage. 

That  which  is  infinite  can  have  no  finite :  so  says 
our  piecemeal  logic.  But  there  is  a  higher  power  of 
the  soul  that  comprehends,  if  it  cannot  analyze  ;  that 
has  an  idea,  if  it  cannot  form  a  conception,  or — if  this 
is  thought  to  be  too  boastful  language — believes, 
where  it  cannot  understand.  The  infinite  contains 
the  finite,  must  manifest  the  finite  both  in  nature  and 
revelation,  must  be  able  to  think  the  finite,  as  a  real 
divine  thought,  or  it  cannot  be  itself  infinite,  omni- 
scient, almighty. 

This  two-fold  aspect  in  the  divine  character  appears 
in  the  very  oldest  scripture.  The  Spirit  and  the 
Word  in  creation,  "the  voice  of  Jehovah  Elohim 
walking  in  Eden  in  the  cool  of  the  day ; "  how  tran- 
scendent the  ideas  suggested  by  the  one  style  of  lan- 
guage, how  human  the  conception  presented  in  the 
other.  The  serious  reader  must  have  noted  in  other 
parts  of  the  Pentateuch  this  remarkable  union  of  the 
highest  spirituality  and  the  simplest  anthropopathism, 


NOTES.  387 

sometimes  in  almost  immediate  connection.  The  El 
Olam,  the  Eternal,  the  Almighty,  the  Most  High,  the 
same  with  the  manifesting  angel  that  wrestled  with 
Jacob  and  talked  so  familiarly  at  the  tent  door  with 
the  pleading  Patriarch, — the  self-existent  Jehovah, 
the  6  c5i>,  the  "  I  am  that  I  am,"  who  immediately 
calls  himself,  in  the  next  verse,  a  patrial  God,  "the 
God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and.  of  Jacob."  In  all 
snch  representations  no  contradiction  is  felt,  none  is 
expressed.  God  is  the  unrepresentable  One  (Dent. 
4  :  15, 16),  he  has  "no  similitude;"  and  yet  without  any 
misgiving  or  sense  of  inconsistency  there  are  ascribed 
to  him  acts  and  appearances,  which,  without  the  con- 
ception or  imaging  faculty,  can  have  for  us  neither 
force  nor  meaning.  In  all  this  the  writers  must  have 
seen  the  contrast,  and  yet  these  Old  Scriptures  go  on 
their  majestic  way,  neither  calling  attention  to  the 
divine  height  of  the  thought,  nor  ever  apologizing  for 
the  human  lowliness  of  the  language  and  imagery. 

NOTE  2.— Page  02. 
Its  Critical  Edge.  The  reference  is  to  Hebrews, 
4:12,  where  the  Greek  word  Kptrtubg  denotes  the 
separating  or  analyzing  power  of  the  Logos,  or  the 
divine  word  living  and  energizing  in  the  Scriptures. 
AYith  this  the  whole  imagery  of  that  striking  passage 
is  in  perfect  harmony.     "  It  is  sharper  than  the  two- 


388  NOTES. 

edged  sword," — duKvov/ievog,  going  clear  through, 
penetrating  to  the  very  cor,  core,  or  marrow  of  hu- 
manity. It  divides  soul  and  spirit,  ipvxrj  and.  -nvevjia. 
These  words  are  not  tautological  repetitions  employed 
for  rhetorical  intensity  merely,  neither  are  they  de- 
signed to  express  a  philosophical  subtlety,  but  denote 
two  departments  of  the  inner  man,  most  distinct, 
practically,  in  their  workings,  and  most  obvious,  con- 
sciously, to  those  who  make  self-knowledge  their 
deepest  study.  In  one  of  these,  namely,  in  the  tyvyr\, 
or  sensitive  nature,  dwell  what  are,  for  the  most  part, 
the  motives  or  moving  powers  of  human  action ; 
whilst  from  the  other,  the  nvevfia,  or  intellectual 
chamber,  are  brought  the  reasons  by  which  we  seek 
to  disguise  these  moving  powers,  even  from  ourselves. 
We  cannot  bear  our  own  sensual  selfishness,  and  so 
this  continual  attempt, — for  most  men  this  life-long 
attempt, — to  cover  low  motives  with  high  reasons,  is 
ever  breeding  a  still  greater  darkness  in  the  spirit. 
And  so  it  goes  on,  until  there  comes  the  separating 
word  making  light,  as  of  old  it  did  upon  the  physical 
chaos;  for  that  creation,  too,  was,  in  the  main,  a 
dividing,  a  critical  separation  of  elements  that  before 
dwelt  together  in  dark  confusion.  Another  process 
of  this  critical  word  is  to  distinguish  between  the 
evdvfifjaeig  and  the  Ivvoiai  rrjg  icapdiag,  "  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  the  heart."     This  should  be  rendered 


NOTES.  389 

rather  the  thinkings  and  the  thoughts — the  first  re- 
ferring to  the  actual  present  exercises  or  cogitations 
of  the  soul,  which  we  suffer  to  become  visible  to  our- 
selves ;  the  other  to  the  evvoiai,  the  more  interior 
principles,  good  or  bad,  the  ruling  ideas,  or  settled 
thoughts,  that  make  the  real  man,  though  lying,  it 
may  be,  long  and  far  below  the  slumbering  con- 
sciousness. The  distinction,  then,  would  be  the  same 
in  both  cases  ;  and  thus  interpreting  we  see  the  force 
of  the  anatomical  language  that  follows:  "For  all 
things  lie  naked  and  dissected  {reTpaxnXtaiieva)  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  him  (or  of  that  power),  irpbc  ov  r\\ilv 
6  Xoyoc,  to  whom  our  discourse  relates," 

NOTE  3.— Page  94. 
"  That  I  may  apprehend  that  for  which  {or  by 
which)  I  am  apprehended  of  Christ  Jesus" — Phil. 
3  :  12.  The  idea  has  given  the  commentators  trouble, 
but  the  figure  itself  seems  clear.  It  is  an  intense  ex- 
pression of  that  favorite  thought  of  Paul,  presented 
in  the  previous  verse,  of  his  intimate  connection  with 
Christ.  If  we  take  the  metaphor  in  its  more  interior 
aspect,  it  is  "  having  the  mind  of  Christ"  (Phil.  2  :  5); 
a  knowing  as  he  is  known,  an  apprehending  as  he  is 
apprehended.  The  more  outward  figure  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  rrjg  dvo)  KXrjascog  of  the  following  verse, 
"  the  upward   calling,"  or  "  calling  upward."     There 


390  NOTES. 

is  the  same  strong  word  dtcjKO)  in  both  clauses.  "  I 
press  onward  "  toward  him  who  is  calling  me  upward, 
like  the  voice  (Rev.  11  :  12)  saying,  dvafinre  wde, 
"  Gome  up  hither."  It  is  a  pressing  upward  to  grasp 
him  by  whom  he  is  grasped — to  get  a  firm  hold  of  a 
hand  reached  down  from  above ;  that  hand  which 
"lays  hold  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,"  emXafifidveTai— 
Heb.  2  :  16.  Some  would  refer  it  to  Paul's  conversion, 
or  sudden  apprehension  by  Christ,  but  this  could  be, 
in  any  case,  only  a  part  of  the  idea.  If  we  choose 
thus  to  accommodate  the  language,  it  is  admirably 
expressive  of  the  Divine  condescension  or  coming 
down  to  us,  both  in  the  incarnate  and  in  the  written 
word. 

NOTE  4.—  Tage  106. 

Heb.  9  :  1 — "Ayiov  kooiukov^  "  the  world-scinctu* 
ary,"  or  "  world-temple."  The  contrasts  intended  by 
the  writer  of  Hebrews  are  so  clear,  that  it  is  a  wonder 
how  commentators  could  have  had  any  difficulty  about 
the  meaning  of  koomkov  here,  or  how  our  translators 
could  have  so  obscured  the  sense  by  rendering  it 
"  worldly."  The  dyiov  Koa^inbv  here  is  in  contrast  with 
the  fjLei^ovog  fiat  reXeiGTepag  onTjvrjg  ot)  xeiP01TOtl)TOV 
(verse  11),  "the  greater  and  more  perfect  tabernacle 
not  made  with  hands,"  "  where  Christ,  the  High 
Priest,  entered  with    his   own   blood,  when  he  had 


NOTES.  391 

found  the  eternal  redemption."  Compare  with  it, 
also,  the  dyca  srrovpdvia  (verse  24),  the  "heavenly 
holies,"  or  heaven  itself,  of  which  the  cosmical  holy 
was  the  type, 

NOTE  5.— Page  139. 
The  passage  is  near  the  close  of  the  VI  Book  of 
the  Republic,  -198  c.  Socrates  had  been  setting  forth, 
at  great  length,  the  character  of  the  "  true  philoso- 
pher." Any  one  intimately  acquainted  with  the  Pla- 
tonic writings  knows  how  much  the  sense  in  which 
this  word  is  employed  transcends  the  use  of  it  in  any 
other  writings,  whether  ancient  or  modern.  No 
where  else  does  the  term  philosophy  come  so  near 
religion.  The  true  philosopher,  in  the  Platonic  writ- 
ings, is  the  man  who,  "  unknown  to  the  world"  (see 
the  Phasdon,  64  a),  or  P.ehwdiog  rovg  dXXovg,  lives  for 
the  spiritual  and  the  divine^  in  distinction  from  the 
sensual  and  the  worldly.  He  is  one  to  whom  there  is, 
in  some  sense,  a  divine  afflatus,  hi  nvog  $?id$  Emnvoiag 
dhjdiV7jg  faXooorpiag  dXr\divdg  epiog,  "  a  true  love  of 
true  philosophy  from  some  divine  inbreathing." 
There  could  be  no  perfect  commonwealth,  it  had  been 
argued,  until  such  philosophers  had  become  its  jninces 
Or  magistrates,  Was  there  anywhere  such  a  State  ? 
Had  there  ever  been  a  State  so  grounded  on  heav- 
enly   ideas,    and    a    true    Divine    legislation  ?      To 


392  NOTES. 

these  questions  the  answer  is  given  :  "  If  such  a  peo- 
ple so  governed  had  ever  existed  in  the  immense  past 
time,  or  if  it  now  exists  in  some  remote  barbarian  or 
foreign  land,  then  are  we  prepared  to  maintain  that 
our  ideal  State  has  been  realized,  or  that  it  will  be 
realized,  whenever  this  Muse,  av~r\  rj  Movoa,  this  phil- 
osophic inspiration,  or  heavenly  philosophy,  shall  have 
become  its  ruling  power.  For  the  things  of  which 
we  speak,  though  difficult,  are  not  impossible."  Plato 
was  not  a  prophet,  but  who  that  reads  this  can  avoid 
thinking  of  that  divine  or  theocratic  "  polity "  then 
actually  existing  in  the  barbarian  land  of  Judea,  and 
that  then  future  polity  of  the  Christian  Church,  of 
which  it  was  ever  the  type  ?  This  was  the  Civitas 
Dei,  and  that  true  philosophy  of  which  Plato  dreamed, 
but  could  never  see  the  accomplishment,  even  of  his 
own  very  imperfect  ideal. 

NOTE  6.— Page  144. 

We  cannot  easily  believe  Mohammed  to  have  been 
a  sheer  impostor.  The  book  he  has  given  us  has  the 
style  of  high  enthusiasm,  far  above  that  mere  imita- 
tion aspect  which  characterizes  most  of  the  apocryphal 
Scriptures.  He  seems  to  have  felt  that  he  had  a  mis- 
sion to  restore  the  old  patriarchal  belief  in  the  Divine 
Unity.  He  is,  for  the  most  part,  in  wonderful  har- 
mony with  the  Old  Testament,  and  speaks  not  only 


NOTES.  393 

with  respect  but  tenderness  of  Jesus,  conceding  to 
him  a  position  more  divine  than  his  own,  and  evident- 
ly regarding  him  as  having  had  a  divine  and  super- 
natural birth.  Mohammed  laid  no  claim  to  personal 
miracles,  unless  we  regard  as  such  his  remarkable 
vision,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Koran. 

The  great  interest  of  this  wonderful  book,  whose 
poetic  form  and  nature  are  so  little  understood,  con- 
sists in  its  independent  narration  of  some  of  the  lead- 
ing events  in  the  early  Old  Testament  history.  We 
cannot  here  state  the  argument,  but  there  is  abundant 
internal  evidence  that  the  stories  of  Abraham,  of 
Noah,  of  Joseph,  of  Ishmael,  together  with  other  an- 
cient events  not  mentioned  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
such  as  the  accounts  of  the  prophets  Hud  and  Saleh, 
were  not  derived  from  the  Bible,  but  came  down 
from  independent  collateral  tradition  among  these 
sons  of  the  desert;  and  that  these  traditions  date 
away  back  to  the  times  of  Ishmael,  and  even  to  Jok= 
tan,  who  was  the  son  of  Eber  the  great  ancestor  both 
of  the  Jews  and  the  Arabians. 

NOTE  7.— Page  155. 

"  Held  sacred  from  a  long  antiquity?''  See  Jose- 
phus,  Antiq.,  Booh  IT.,  Chap.  12.  When  speaking 
of  Sinai,  he  says ;  "  Now  this  is  the  highest  of  all  the 


894  NOTES. 

mountains  thereabouts,  and  the  best  for  pasturage, 
the  herbage  there  being  good  ;  but  it  had  not  been 
before  fed  upon,  because  of  the  opinion  men  had  that 
God  dwelt  there,  the  shepherds  not  daring  to  ascend 
up  to  it."  We  learn,  too,  from  other  sources,  that 
this  whole  region  of  desert  country,  from  the  northern 
extremity  all  the  way  down  the  east  side  Gf  the  Ara- 
bian Gulf  or  the  Red  Sea,  had  a  religious  veneration 
attached  to  it.  It  had  sacred  places,  and  a  religio  loci, 
and  consecrated  shrines,  from  a  great  antiquity.  See 
Diodorus  Siculus  iii.,  42.  From  this  source  probably 
came  that  early  veneration  of  the  Kaaba,  or  shrine  of 
Mecca,  of  which  Mohammed  makes  so  much  account. 
Such  veneration  may  have  had  its  origin  in  the  weird 
aspect  of  these  singular  regions,  but  this  idea  does  not 
detract  from  the  inspiration  of  the  narrative  in  Exo- 
dus. God  may  have  chosen  to  meet  his  servant  there 
on  that  very  account.  Or  the  story  of  the  ancient 
supernatural  may  have  been  a  subsequent  tradition, 
growing  out  of  that  feeling  which  naturally  connects 
a  religio  loci  with  any  great  event,  religious  or  histor- 
ical. Such  is  the  tradition  to  which  Virgil  refers  in 
regard  to  the  site  of  early  Rome,  when  Evander  leads 
^Eneas  to  the  site  of  the  Tarpeian  rock  and  the  seat 
of  the  Capitol  that  afterwards,  for  so  long  a  time,  had 
a  religious  veneration  in  Roman  history,  and  which, 
even  yet,  maintains  its  power  over  the  souls  of  men. 


NOTES.  395 

Hinc  ad  Tarpeiam  sedem  et  Capitolia  ducit 
Aurea  nunc,  olim  sylvestribus  horrida  dumis. 
Jam  turn  religio  pavidos  terrebat  agrestes 
Dira  loci ;  jam  turn  sylvam  saxumque  tremebant. 
Hoc  nemus,  hunc,  inquit,  frondoso  vertice,  collem, 
Quis  Deus  incertum  est,  habitat  Deus.     Arcades  ipsum 
Credunt  se  vidisse  Jovem  ;  cum  saepe  nigrantem 
-ZEgida  concuteret  dextra,  nimbosque  cieret. 

^Eneid,  Till.,  347. 

NOTE  8.— Page  257. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  the  perfect  adaptedness 
of  this  83th  Psalm  to  the  condition  of  the  leper  king, 
Uzziah,  should  have  escaped  the  notice  of  commenta- 
tors ;  and  yet  we  cannot  help  being  impressed  by  it. 
"  And  Uzziah  the  king  was  a  leper  unto  the  day  of 
his  death,  and  he  dwelt  in  a  free  house  (or  separate 
house),  being  a  leper;  for  he  was  cut  off  from  the 
house  of  the  Lord  ;  and  Jothani,  his  son,  was  over  the 
king's  house,  judging  the  people  of  the  land."— 2 
Chron.,  26 :  12. 

One  of  the  most  striking  coincidences,  philological- 
ly,  between  this  passage  and  the  Psalm  referred  to, 
is  found  in  the  Hebrew  word  ican,  which,  although 
of  rather  rare  occurrence  elsewhere,  occurs  in  both 
these  places,  and  with  a  remarkable  similarity  of  idea. 
The  primary  sense  of  the  word  is  free.  As  the  deriva- 
tive is  used  in  2  Chronicles,  26  :  21,  it  denotes  a  free 
house,  in  the  sense  of  a  person  left  to  himself,  imniu* 


396  NOTES. 

»w,  away  from  ordinary  employments,  separate, 
alone.  There  is  a  similar  use  of  the  Latin  liber,  as  in 
the  phrase  liberce  cedes,  a  dwelling  occupied  by  no  one 
else.  Most  impressively  corresponding  to  this  is  the 
use  of  the  word,  Ps.  88  ;  6  :  "Free  amo?if/  the  dead  /" 
or,  as  the  Syriac  version  renders  it,  "  A  freed  man  in 
the  house  of  the  dead." 

Now,  remembering  that  Uzziah  had  been  a  religious 
king,  notwithstanding  this  act  of  impiety,  let  us  com- 
pare with  the  history  the  language  of  the  Psalm. 
Can  we  find  anything  that  so  exactly  fits  it,  whether 
We  regard  its  exact  description,  its  strong  suggestive- 
ness  of  similar  ideas,  or  its  most  touching  pathos  ? 

Lord  God  of  my  salvation, 

Day  and  night  my  cry  is  before  thee. 

Let  my  prayer  come  unto  thee  ; 

Incline  thine  ear  to  my  wailing. 

For  my  sonl  is  full  of  sorrow  ; 

My  life  draws  nigh  to  Sheol. 

Free  among  the  dead, 

Like  the  slain,  like  the  sleepers  in  the  grave,, 

Whom  thou  rememberest  no  more, 

"Who  are  cut  off  from  thy  hand. 

That  is,  from  thy  worship ;  they  come  no  more  into 
the  house  of  the  Lord,  as  we  are  told  in  Chronicles— 
11  For  he  was  cut  off  from  the  house  of  the  Lord." 

Thou  hast  laid  me  in  the  lowest  pit, 
In  the  darkness,  in  the  shadowy  deptbs. 
Thou  hast  put  far  from  me  my  familiar  friends. 
Thou  hast  made  me  a  loathing  to  them. 


NOTES.  397 

The  language  following  we  cannot  help  regarding 
as  that  of  soliloquy  rather  than  despair.  It  seems  the 
rising  of  a  faint  hope,  presenting  itself  in  the  form  of 
wondering  query,  like  Job's  exclamation  :  "  If  a  man 
die  shall  he  really  live  again  ?  "  So  here  there  would 
seem  such  a  ray  of  consolation  feebly  entering  this 
dark  house  of  death.  It  is  the  rising  thought  of  some 
possible  higher  life,  yet  barely  strong  enough  to  call 
out  the  musing  soliloquizing  style.  As  though  he 
had  asked  himself,  in  wonder  at  the  very  conception, 
"  Ah  !  can  it  be  ?  » 

Wilt  thou  work  a  miracle  for  the  dead  ? 

Shall  the  Rephaim  (the  manes)  rise  up  and  praise  thee  ? 

Shall,  indeed,  thy  mercy  be  told  in  the  grave  ? 

Thy  faithfulness  in  Abaddon  ? 

Shall  thy  wonder  be  really  known  in  the  darkness, 

Thy  righteousness  in  the  Land  of  Oblivion  ? 

And  then  a  more  assuring  strain.  The  soul  seems 
to  rise  out  of  its  darkness  : 

And  yet,  0  Lord,  my  cry  is  unto  thee  ; 
In  the  morning  shall  my  prayer  still  come  before  thee  ; 
For  why,  Jehovah,  wouldst  thou  cast  off  my  soul  ? 
"Why  hide  thy  face  from  me  ? 

Is  the  'morning  here  the  morning  of  a  new  life  ? 
There  are  some  passages  in  the  Psalms  that  would 
seem  to  warrant  such  an  interpretation.  In  the  clos- 
ing lines,  however,  there  returns  again  the  gloom  of 
the  prison-house  : 


398  KOTES. 

Wretched  am  I  and  spent  with  trembling  ; 

I  bear  thy  terrors,— I  am  wild  with  sorrow. 

Thy  wrath  passes  over  me, — thy  alarms  consume  me; 

They  come  round  me  like  floods  all  the  day. 

Far  from  me  hast  thou  put  lover  and  friend, 

My  nearest  ones  are  aivay  from  my  darkness. 

There  is  but  one  thing  that  would  seem  in  the  least 
inconsistent  with  such  a  view.  It  is  the  expression, 
v.  15,  "from  my  youth  up,"  as  it  is  rendered  in  our 
common  version.  But  the  root  there  found,  when 
used  for  youth,  is  almost  every  where  else  in  the 
plural,  like  the  corresponding  Hebrew  term  for  age. 
The  two  or  three  cases  where  it  seems  to  have  that 
sense  in  the  singular,  do  all  admit  of  a  better,  though 
a  kindred  version.  Its  root  sense  (agitation)  is  the 
one  here  employed ;  as  Psalms  109  :  23. 

On  farther  examination,  we  find  that  a  similar  view 
of  the  Psalm  is  taken  by  Ikenius,  and  combated  by 
Venema.     See  Venema  on  the  Psalms,  vol.  5,  p.  69. 

NOTE  9.— Page  279. 

The  reference  is  to  Isaiah  45  :  7.  "I  am  the  Lord ; 
and  there  is  no  other.  I  form  the  light  and  create 
darkness;  I  make  peace  and  create  evil."  Formans 
lucem  et  creans  tenebras,  faciens  pacem  et  creans 
malum.  The  best  commentators  have  regarded  it  as 
directed  against  the  Persian  or  ancient  Oriental  doc- 
trine of  the  two  principles,  good  and  evil,  or  light  and 


NOTES.  899 

darkness,  as  taught  in  the  Zendavcsta.  It  was  em- 
ployed also  by  the  Fathers  against  the  heretic  Mar- 
cion,  who  held  the  same  opinion. 

NOTE  10.— Page  281. 
The  Vulgate  gives  us  a  very  singular  rendering  of 
this  passage — "  Gloria  in  altissimis  Deo,  et  in  terra 
pax  homhiibus  bonce  voluntatis /"  "  Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  to  men  of  good-will." 
In  this  it  is  followed  by  the  Rheims  and  Wickliffe 
translations  that  were  made  from  it.  It  requires  the 
Greek  reading  evdoKtag  which  has  little  or  no  author- 
ity. Every  critical  reader  must  see  how  it  mars  the 
glorious  passage.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  most  serious 
faults  of  this,  in  the  main,  admirable  version  of  the 
Scriptures. 

NOTE  11.— Page  351. 

In  Isaiah  24  :  5,  the  Jews  are  charged  with  having 
broken  the  "Everlasting  Covenant"  a^u  n^S.  But 
what  is  meant  by  this  ?  Aben  Esra  regards  it  as  the 
universal  unwritten  law  of  nature  and  conscience.  To 
the  same  effect  is  it  interpreted  by  Hieronymus.  But 
Gesenius  maintains — and  justly,  we  think-  that  such 
an  idea  is  alien  to  the  Jewish  mind,  accustomed  as  it 
was  from  the  beginning  to  precise  mandates  and 
national  stipulations.  The  high  sense,  however, 
which  the  prophet  evidently  intended,  is  found  (and 


400  NOTES. 

that,  too,  in  strictest  harmony  with  the  national  ideas) 
in  this  "  Old  Covenant,"  which  made  the  Jews  a 
world-people,  as  we  have  called  then,  and  gave  them  a 
world-destiny.  See  Dent.  32  :  8.  It  was  the  promise 
to  Abraham  (and  that,  too,  a  clearer  republication  of 
the  promise  in  Eden),  that  "  in  his  seed  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  should  be  blessed  ;  "  in  other  words,  that 
in  the  line  of  his  seed  should  come  the  Seed  of  the 
woman,  the  anciently-promised  Redeemer  or  Deliverer 
of  mankind.  This  was  the  Berith  Olam,  &iaQr\\ir\ 
aicoviog,  foedus  sempitemum,  the  Covenant  of  Eter- 
nity, the  world-coveyiant,  the  covenant  that,  transcend- 
ing their  local  history  in  Palestine,  was  to  go  through 
the  ages,  or  olams,  carrying  out  the  great  idea  on 
which  the  Jews,  obscurely  as  they  may  have  under- 
stood it,  ever  prided  themselves.  "  Israel  was,"  in 
some  way,  to  be  "  God's  salvation,  even  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth."  Even  in  the  more  restricted  sense  it  was 
a  "  covenant  of  ages."  The  national  Israel  survived 
the  Assyrian,  the  Persian,  the  Greek,  and  Macedonian 
empires.  But  its  highest  fulfilment  is  in  that  "  true 
Israel,"  or  Civitas  Dei,  to  which  all  other  nations 
and  all  other  history  have  been,  and  ever  will  be,  sub- 
servient. 


DATE  DUE 

wm0f 

*°°  ,a. "  *x 

Qt  t    1 

— 

CAYLORD 

PHINTtO  IN  U.S. A 

